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THE ISSUES INVOLVED I\ THE PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST. 



SPEECH 



HON. WILLIAM L. YANCEY, 



OF#A.LABAMA, .-, 






DELIVERED AT MEMPHIS, TENN., AUGUST 11, 1860. 



FRANKFORT, J£.^T . 

PRINTED AND FOR SALE AT THE YEOMAN OFFICE. 
1860- 



[From the Memphis Daily Avalanche, August 17th.] 

The Iargefspace in our issue to-day, occupied by the great speech of the 
Hon. Wm. lA Yancey, necessarily precludes the appearance of the usual 
amount of wteresting miscellaneous and news matter. We are satisfied, 
however, ih»our readers will commend the appearance of the speech to the 
exclusion of jdmost everything else. NevejJ>ms so much interest manifested 
•y^fdj^ms miffhtv produseiulHSfc. Ever 



as ft •Kgfcd/r'tns mighty prodiB^ybsk. Even those who heai'd it, desire 

'to reacj^/tand file,, t^yvay ils a gpeat document for future reference. 
:e oszr pjj^ir^fo have it in full this^m^Tfftg, a large number of extra 

copies containing it have been^derea, which will repay the enterprise and 



expense we hav^heefr*avin having it reported and published. 



?r 



SPEECH 



HON. WILLIAM L. YANCEY, 



OF ALABAMA, 



DELIVERED AT MEMPHIS, TF.N.V, AUGHTST 14, 1S60, ON il)K ISSUES INVOLVED 
IN THE RESIDENTIAL CONTEST. 



[Stenographic report of the Memphis Daily Avalanche.] 



Fellow-Citize\'£ or Tennessee: 

If you »vill give me your attention to-tight, I 
will endeavor to address you as one honest man 
ought to speak to another — frankly, truthfully, 
fearlessly. I know where I stand and in whose 
presence I am. I knew, too, what has been said 
in relation to my humble self and my opinions, 
in this State, by tin- press and by influential indi- 
viduals. What 1 have to say to-night will be in 
■behalf of the Democracy, of the Constitution, 
and of the Union under the Constitution. Of 
those who have been opposed to me, possibly 
whose minds have been prejudiced, whose ears 
have been filled with unkind sayings, (to speak 
of it in the most charitable terms,) I only ask a 
patient hearing. Of the patriot, who wishes his 
country well, and who would himself willingly or 
willfully do nothing that would be injurious to 
the interests of that country, I ask a like eacdid 
hearing of all, to all, and about all. What I 
say, as I said befor-e, I shall emle aver to say with 
frankness, with truthfulness, and I trust with a 
proper respect for them and for myself. 

The country, my friends, has fur many years 
•been in a state of excitement with reference as 
to what shall lie its fate within this government. 
This grave, dignified, and mighty issue has been 
such that parties and statesmen have gone down 
•before it, ami that no party has been aide to stand 
it save the Democratic party. [A voice "Ihavo."] 
Whether that party is yet to exist longer and be 
a barrier against sectional and unconstitutional 
aggression, is my theme to-night. It. is t subject 
•of profound interest to every reflecting man, who 
for a few years past has thought that that patty 
"was the only barrier between the dissolution of 
this government and the Constitution. The unity 
of that great party, therefore, is a m itter o f na- 
tional interest. That unity is interwoven wiih 



the very safety of the Constitution it-elf, and 
with the safely of your instititutions and your 
rights. I speak it no! as a partisan, for, although 
I speak in behalf of the Democratic party to- 
night, I am not a Democratic partisan; I have 
not been a Democratic partisan; 1 am not one of 
those who hurrah for the Democracy without a 
why or a wherefore, whether it be right or wrong. 
If my humble history is known to you, as it 
should be known by a people who hive beard so 
much abuse of myself, it would slew to you that 
in times past 1 have ventured to differ with my 
party, the Democracy, on this great question, and 
relying upon my own conviction of what i< right, 
that 1 have ventured to oppose it- If now and 
for some years past I have been found acting with 
it cordially, it has only been, my countrymen, 
because my convictions are that it is constitu- 
tionally sound and right. [Applail-e.j 

Tlie great question will rise before you that if 
the unity of this party is a matter of national 
interest, how is it that unity is now in danger? 
What is, and who causes that danger? What 
are the purposes that those have in view who 
are endangering its unity | These are quet- 

tions of great interest. I shall not discuss then 
with the mere newspaper slam;, by declaring that 
my party is right and all other parties are wrong, 
and hurrah for the Hag th it floats over me with- 
out reason; but, in order that I may commend 
what I say to-night to your judgment and t i your 

. and to your b< tier nature, I -I' ''i endeav- 
or to go back to tin,' record and speak by the 
record, and onlj tpeak that which i- in fact the 
truth <,! history now. 

There are now three parties in the South claim- 
in- of tee i pie their su rhe Breckin- 
ridge and Lane party, that I name firsl in order, 
because J. believe it to be the true friend of the 



Constitution, and because I believe it has more 
power and more ability, and as much will as any 
other party to save the Constitution. Then there 
is the Douglas Democracy, and lastly the Bell 
party, that hopes to rise to power and success 
simply by reason of the division of the Demo- 
cratic party. 

When Breckinridge and Lane present them- 
selves before the people for their suffrages, as the 
Democratic candidates, and as occupying the 
Democratic platform that has been approved by 
the country, they are met by the friends of Mr. 
Douglas, who assert that Stephen A. Douglas and 
Herschel V. Johnson are the regular nominees of 
the Democratic party, and that Mr. Douglas 
alone, of the Democratic candidates in the field, 
represents the Democratic policy and Democratic 
principles. While Mr. Bell and his friends assert 
that the people should give Bell their confidence, 
because he is in favor of "the Union, the Consti 
tution, and the enforcement of the law," without 
offering to the public any avowed remedy for the 
evils which aie afflicting the government, or any 
well digested means of saving the Union, [ap- 
plause,] it is due to frankness to state that the 
Douglas party does offer a platform which, with 
the explanation given to it by Mr. Douglas, can 
easily be understood; while the Breckinridge 
party offers a platform clearly defined in itself, 
aud that needs no explanation. I propose to con- 
sider these three parties, with the positions which 
their different heads occupy before the American 
people. 

I will first address myself to 'the Douglas 
Democracy, because the unity of the Democracy 
which the country has long desired, if it existed 
at this hour, would prevent any other party at the 
South offering itself for the suffrages of the 
American people, for I believe Mr. Bell would 
not have been in the field if it had not been 
divided. I shall undertake to show to those 
Democrats who rally under Mr. Douglas, that he 
is not the regular nominee of the party, and that 
the principles that he avows before the American 
pecp'e are not the principles of the Democracy, 
and never have been the principles of ihe Demo- 
cracy. [Applause.] 

Mr. Douglas, my friends, is a statesman of 
great eminence and ability, a man of great power 
individually, having many manly traits of char- 
acter, with whom it has been my pleasure, ever 
since I have known him, for some sixteen years, 
to be upon terms of personal intimacy and re- 
gard. But it is due to frankness and to the truth 
of history to state that Mr. Douglas has had de- 
signs upon the unity of the Democratic party ever 
since the Northern people failed to obtain, under 
the operation of the Kansas-Nebraska act, the 
•dominaney in the Territory of Kansas, and that, 
when it became apparent that the Southern men 
had obtained advantages under that act, and that 
Kar.sas, under these advantages, if fairly dealt 
by, would be admitted into the Union as a slave 
State, that he has determined to war against the 
t.-ue principles of the Kansas-Nebraska bill to 
keep K uisas out of the Union as a slave State, 
and, if necessary, to dismember the Democratic 
party, and to rely for support in that controversy 
upon the anti-slavery sentiment of the Northern 
.States. This I shall undertake to prove. 



In the first place, I look to the Conventions 
that have lately assembled ; and in the course of ' 
my argument upon his platform I shall go back 
many years in the history of the Democracy to 
prove the truth of these assertions. When the 
Convention of the Democracy met at Charleston, 
Mr. Douglas was well aware that he could not 
obtain the nomination under the two-thirds rule, 
and his friends now throughout the country — and 
I instance one of the most, eminent of his friends, 
Hershel V. Johnson, of Georgia, candidate for 
the Vice Presidency upon the Doughrs ticket — 
his friends, I say, indorsed by Gov. Johnson, say 
that had the eight cotton States remained in the 
Charleston Convention, that there was no possi- 
ble chance of nominating Mr. Douglas. They 
admit that now, as then. Starting out with the 
conviction that the Democratic rule of two thirds 
stood between him and the object of his ambi- 
tion, his designs were to dismember the Demo- 
cratic party, and to do it in such a manner as, if 
possible, to wool the eyes of the people, and 
make them believe that others were responsible 
for its dismemberment. 

First, then, he avowed before that Convention 
met that he would not accept of the nomination 
at the hands of the Democracy, unless the Dem- 
ocratic party indorsed his view in relation to the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill. Now, then, here stood 
his incentive to his friends — " I want to be nom- 
inated for the Presidency, and you wish to nomi- 
nate me. I cannot obtain two thirds of that Con- 
vention." Gov. Herschel V. Johnson now open- 
ly proclaims that it could not have been done, 
and others make the same statement; and I know 
it, too. " I also proclaim that I will not accept 
of the nomination on any other platform than my 
own, and yet I am a candidate now for the nomi- 
nation. 1 must have the platform to suit myself* 
and I must get rid of this two-thirds rule. These 
are my two points." 

The Stat* of Alabama, as well as at er South- 
ern States, fully recognized the importance of 
the great issue before the American people; and 
that issue was a vital issue, a constitutional prin- 
ciple being involved, which could not be compro- 
mised without yielding our constitutional posi- 
tion of equali:y in the Union, and to that degree 
taking from our breast the Constitution, which is N 
our only shield and protection against Northern 
majorities. [Applause.] We declared that we 
must demand that our platform should be indors- 
ed by the Convention. Here, then, were South- 
ern States taking the position that the constitu- 
tional rights of the South should be acknowl- 
edged in the Democratic Convention, and Mr- 
Douglas taking the position — " My platform must 
be acknowledged or I will not accept the nomi- 
nation." It is easy for one man to say that an- 
other is wrong. It is not always so easy to prove 
his error. It is common to say that Alabama 
attempted to dictate. It is no dictation for me 
to say that I claim all my constitutional rights, 
and that others shall not trample upon them. He 
who undertakes to tell me that I shall not have 
my constitutional rights, does, however, dictate 
to me. But when I hold up the compact which 
my fathers made, and say, " give me this that it 
was guaranteed I should have, and give me it 
all." that is ho dictation. We weat into tfc* 



Convention opposed to each other. Alabama 
but spoke for ber rights, and when Douglas said 
I will have the nomination and the platform, \l 
■tbamasaid we will bave our constitutional rights 
of protection acknowledged, or we will not re- 
main iii a Convention thai denies us that consti- 
tutional protection* [Applause.] / 

Mr. Douglas had no right al Btake in that. Con- 
vention save bis personal Ambition. The State 
of Alabama and other Southern States had their 
rights at stake, and they had aright to speak* 
We said. " Don't aggress on us," while he said, 
" If you are aggressed on, 1 proclaim in advance 
that you shan't have the protection of your Gov- 
ernment-' lie could yield, and yield no consti- 
tutional position. We could not yield without 
yielding our constitutional rights. [Cheers.] 

Now then, When his friends got into the *'"ii 
vention, the Erst object they had in view was to 
Neat down the two-thirds rule if possible. Well, 
how did they go about to do that. There were 
in several States at the South a few men friendly 
to Douglas. These were a minority in each of 
such States. The majority of each of those del- 
egations, if they cast the vote of their State as a 
unit, would have suppressed all those minorities. 
Douglas did not, wish that. There were also in 
several of the Northern States minorities against 
Douglas and majorities in his favor. The major- 
ity vote in each of these States would suppress 
all these minorities against him, and make these 
votes that were really against him be for him. 
Now, it was a remarkably smart man who could 
bring in a rule to make all these votes count for 
him. A double edged sword, ttiat cuts both sides, 
it is supposed, cuts to the injury of the hands of 
him who holds it; but he was able to make it 
work on both sides against his enemies and for 
himself. He, therefore, by his friends, concocted 
a rule so cunningly devised that its etfect was not 
observed until after it was passed. That rule 
was, that the States not instructed by the Slate 
Conventions to vote as a unit should vote each 
man in the delegation for himself, but the States 
that were instructed to vote as a unit should vote 
according to those instructions. 

What was the effect of that rule? It was to 
give, in fact, to Mr. Douglas fifty-one votes that 
lie otherwise would not have got. In the State 
of Pennsylvania it gave him some ten votes that 
were cist in his favor, which, if the rule had been 
uniform throughout the Convention, would have 
been suppressed, and given in favor of Breckin- 
ridge or Guthrie. In Virginia it gave him one 
vote; in North Carolina one; in Massachusetts 
six; in Tennessee one; in Maryland three and a 
half, and in New Jersey two and a half. The in- 
dividual rule of voting gave him twenty-four and 
a half votes which would have been suppressed 
if the majority rule had prevailed, or if the rule 
had been uniform, that the majority of each dele- 
gation should cast the entire vote of each State. 
Had the contrary rule been uniformly in force, 
then he would have lost fifteen votes in New 
York; in Ohio six; four and a half in Indiana, 
and one half in Vermont, or twenty-six in all. 
But by this ingenious device, by mingling two in- 
consistent rules together, and using each as it 
suited him, Mr. Douglas succeeded in gaining 
upwards of fifty votes, where, by adopting either 



to the exclusion of ike other, le would not have 
received more than half thai number. That I'mi- 
vention Bhould have adopted either the unit rule, 
ih.it each and everj State should cast I 
s ilid for or against some man, or it should have 
adopted the separate rule, that each ami ever] 
member of the Convention should be allowed to 
CttSl his own vote* 

By the operation of this rule he gained hugely, 
>o as to make a difference in the result of fifty 

votes. Mew York gave thirty-live votes to Doug- 
las, whereas he was entitled to but twenty; Penn- 
sylvania had given no instructions to her dele- 
gates, and therefore the rule allow ed all the mem 
bers in the minority to vote for Douglas; where- 
as, by the unit rule, as applied to New York, her 
twenty-seven votes would have been cast against 

him. The practical operation of the rule vv as to 

suppress the voice of the people with reference to 

Mr. Douglas, and to suppress the voice of the 
people with reference to his principle-. 

That was his first design, and by its success he 
made a practical difference in his favor of fifty- 
one votes. That gave him a majority in the 
Charleston Convention, and that majority was 
worked for his individual purposes. [Cries of 
"That's so."] 

Next he said, " I must drive out these cotton 
States that insist upon protection. These eight 
States will vote against me for the nomination, I 
know, and now I must destroy the votes of those 
States." How was he to do that? His way was, 
when the platform question came up, so to shape 
that platform, so to deny the rights of those eight 
States, that when they were denied, those States 
could not consistently with true Democraiy re- 
main in the Convention, and they would secede. 
These rights were urged with moderation; in a 
Spirit of conciliation and kindness-, and purely on 
constitutional grounds, by arguments addressed 
to the reason and judgment of that Convention; 
and yet, when the vote was taken, by the working 
of this unit rule, Mr. Douglas voted it down by a 
vote of 165 to 138; thus denying to the Southern 
States that equal protection to their lights in the 
Territories that the South has always yielded to 
every section in the Union. When protection. 
was thus denied to the constitutional rights of 
those eigiit .States, those eight States left the 
Convention. [Applause and cheers ] 

Why did they leave it? Because, as I will 
show von before I close, the great Democratic 
p inciple of the equality of the States, and of the 
people of the States in the common Territories 

of the Union, had been willfully violated bj Mr. 
Don-las and his friends, and that was done with 
the view that the States I refer to should be 
driven out of that Convention. We did not u>k 
the Convention to add any new plank to the 
Democratic platform; but as Mr. Douglas had 
construed the Cincinnati platform to mean no 
protection to the constitutional rights of the 
South; as he had thus violated that platform by 
his construction of the Kansas art. a- since de- 
termined in the Dred Scott decision: as he him- 
self had violated the principle of the Kansas- 
Nebraska act, which left the question to be de- 
termined by the Supreme Court of the United 
States, the South deemed it necessary, before 
they could accept him as their candidate, that 



that Convention should tell the country what that 
Cincinnati platform meant. The Baptist tells you 
the Bible is his creed, and the Methodist tells you 
that the same Bible is his creed, and both tell 
you that they take that Bible as it is, without 
alteration or amendment. But if you join the 
Methodist church, its creed explains what you 
understand by the Bible, and the same is true of 
the Baptist. So with the Southern Democracy. As 
there were different constructions put upon our 
platform, as there are on the Bible, therefore, as 
true and honest Democrats, that did not wish to 
be deceived or to deceive others, we claimed the 
right to explain what we understood by the Cin- 
cinnati platform, and simply because we claim this 
right, Mr. Douglas' friends forced us out of that 
Convention by voting down that construction, 
and putting their own construction upon it.— - 
[Cries of "You were right to leave."] 

The unit rule gave him then a difference of 
fifty-one votes, and by driving out these cotton 
States, he got rid of fifty and a half votes which 
were against him for the nomination. 

Now, then, having obtained this majority by 
trickery, and then having divided out fifty and a 
half votes that remained of the Southern Demo- 
cracy — for every one of these States had given 
Democratic votes, and the majority of them would 
do so to-morrow if called upon, and will in No- 
vember next — then came up the question of bal- 
loting. 

Before the balloting took place, however, Vir- 
ginia said, " Before we can remain longer in a 
'Convention that has been disrupted of eight 
'Democratic States, we must claim that this rule 
;of the party — this two-thirds rule — shall be con- 
istrued by the President, and that it shall be laid 
.down, so that there shall be no mistake." There- 
ifore, a resolution was offered directing the Presi- 
dent to declare no man nominated for the office 
}of President or Vice President unless he should 
jhive received a number of votes equal to two 
1 thirds of all the electoral college. The electoral 
j college consists of 303 votes, and two thirds 
s would be 202. Objection was at once made by 
(the friends of Mr. Douglas that it was altering 
the old rule of the party, they insisting that the 
j old rule only called for two thirds of all the votes 
i cast in the body. The President of the Conven- 
tion said, " No, this is not altering the old rule; 
5 it is not a new rule. It is but giving the decision 
1 of this body as to what that rule is." He there- 
jfore ruled the point of order against the Douglas 
<nian that made it. The Douglas man took an 
s appeal to the Convention, and the Convention 
s sustained the decision of the chair by 144 votes 
tto 108. The chair then decided, and was sus- 
tained by the body, and it became the irrepealable 
irule of that body, that the old rule of the party 
Iwas, and it would be the rule of that body, that 
J no man should be declared the nominee until he 
Ireceived two thirds of the vote of all the elec- 
toral college — 202 votes. 

t The Charleston Convention adjourned to Balt- 
imore. At Charleston was concocted this scheme, 
■.a which finally ended in the disruption of what re- 
pmaincd of the Democracy in the Convention. 
i' The Douglas men advised the men from the 
.j-Sotuh — the few Douglas men — to go home and 
feald Douglas Conventions, and send their dele- 



gates to Baltimore, who should be admitted into 
that body. They were not to go into the Con- 
ventions with the Democracy generally of their 
States, else they would be beaten by the regular 
Democracy ; but they were to hold Conventions 
of Douglas men alone, and then it made no dif- 
ference how small a number of the Douglas men 
there w r as in the State, if they could send Dong- 
las men to Baltimore. I say this upon what has 
crept out in the newspapers in my State, that this 
plan was conceived at Charleston. By this plan 
Douglas hoped to gain SO}^ votes more, which 
would not be representative of the Democracy, 
but representative of the Douglas minorities of 
their various States. 

I instance Alabama, my own State. In Ala- 
bama the Democracy are nine tenths in favor of 
Breckinridge and Lane and of the true Democra- 
cy. [Applause } The Douglas leaders, Forsyth 
and Seibel, editors of prominent papers, before 
we went to Charleston , had proclaimed to the 
world that we did not repre-ent the Democracy of 
Alabama ; that when the Democracy had an op- 
portunity of revising our actioti, that the world 
would see that we were in a minority. Yet after 
seceding we went back and called a Convention 
of all the Democracy in the State, to consider 
what was best to be done ; not to indorse our 
action ; not to come to say that we had done right ; 
not to come and decide so and so, as we should 
set it down ; but we called friends and foes with- 
in the Democracy to come and consider what was 
best to be done. That was the language of the 
call. If we had misrepresented the Democracy of 
Alabama, there was a fair chance to come in and 
vote us down ; but these men, knowing that they 
were in a miserable minority, were afraid to meet 
the Democracy in council. Their calls were to 
that portion of the Democracy, to meet in another 
Conven ion that agreed with them, with conserva- 
tives, and all others. I suppose they meant Know- 
Nothings by all others, for you know they claimed 
everybody to be in their party at one time. They 
knew if they went into that regular Convention 
no Douglas man from Alabama would ever see 
Baltimore ; therefore, they called an irregular 
Convention, and sent some of those very men, 
"conservatives and all others," to Baltimore, to 
be representatives of the National Democracy. 
Mr. Parsons, of Taladega, a gentleman of high 
standing and of personal worth, whom 1 have ever 
known to be an opponent of the Democracy ; to 
be a member of an old Federal family, and to be 
a Federalist himself— a Northern man, born in 
New York, with Northern ideas in relation to us; 
he who I have often crossed swords with ; who 
voted for Harrison and Scott, Taylor and Fill- 
more, never voting for even a Democratic consta- 
ble in his life, went to that Convention : they sent 
him to represent the true National Democracy in 
the National Convention. [Laughter.] 

Gentlemen, in some place in New Jersey, on 
the 4th of July, when a Fourth of July orator 
was addressing the people in eloquent strains 
about the trials of the Revolution, upon the plat- 
form were several old men — Revolutionary sol- 
diers. The orator of the occasion turned to ad- 
dress them, and he saw one old man there, feeble 
and tottering with age, who was sitting with knit 
brows, and compressed hands, and flashing eyes 



Bad this orator thought this oM man whs one of 
the sternest of the stern upon the battle field, 
who was evidently thinking of tin- time when he 
trod overtlie fields of the State, liis tracks mark- 
ed with bis blood, and of the days when be bud- 
Bisted on a crust of bread, and he thought he was 
the man to picfc out. and address, and he turned 

to him and said : "Venerable old soldier ot the 
Revolution— 'relic of the past — you lived in the 
time that tried men's souls. You were at '1'ien 
ton." The old man nodded his head. "You," 
he continued, "were at Brandywine and JTori 
town." The old man nodded his head again. 
*' You were the companion of Washington, stand- 
ing side by his side, shielding his manly breast 
from the bayonetsof the enemy." " Nein! nein!" 

Bftid the ('hi man. " .Vein Got, I Was mit the Hes- 

sians on that day." [Much laughter.] 

Now then, fellow Democrats of Tennessee— 
you who are honestly in the Douglas ranks, and 
you who are not— think of that. You honest and 
fair-minded men of all parties in Tennessee, what 
do you call that act that imposed that political 
Hessian on. a National Democratic Convention as 
a representative of the Democracy ? I use that 
word in no orTcnsp. e sense to my friend Parsons, 
who is a gentleman, in every sense of the term 
but in a political sense. There he was, in a body 
where none but Democrats should be, and he 
never had given a vote for a Democrat in his life. 
He was not the representative of the Democracy, 
but he was the representative of Stephen A. 
Douglas ; and let me say to you, he never was 
more consistent in his life in striking blows at the 
true Democracy, than when he was in that Con- 
vention as the friend of Stephen A. Douglas. 
(Applause.] 

A voice back of the platform—" Hoorah for 
Douglass ! " [Laughter.] 

Mr. Yaxcey— That, is all right. Only give me 
a hearing now, and hurrah when you get out of 
the woods [laughter] as much as you please. I 
say it in all kindness and respect ; but give me 
about two hours more, and then hurrah as much 
as you please. 

Now, then, when they re-assembled at Balti- 
more, what did this Douglas majority do? In 
accordance with that systematic plan which was 
developed to deplete the Democracy— -to drive out 
National Democratic States by denying National 
Democratic principles—to obtain votes for him- 
self which the people had sent against him — by 
the operation of the unit rule he found out that 
^ he did not still have two thirds. In accordance 
with his plan, these bogus Democrats from L misi- 
ana and Alabama were admitted into the Con- 
vention — fifteen votes—to represent States which 
were, and are, against Mr. Douglas. 

Why, gentlemen, the old Democratic State of 
Virginia, that has never in her life split her ticket 
or given an anti-Democratic vote — the Demo- 
cracy of Jefferson and Madison and of Monroe — 
a Democracy that never yet flinched in the hour 
of trial, and who always bore the Democratic 
banner to victory in every Presidential race that 
has taken place in the history of our government 
— the Democratic party of that old State, thus 
finding that there was a fraction had got control 
of the organization of the Democratic party or 
Convention, and was using it not to advance the 



interests of the Democratic | arty, bul to advanoe 
the interests of an individual, and in doing that 
was riding over all the principles of Democracy! 
l-oth as to representation and as to principles — 

that old State, together With .Maryland and the 

o I old c ■ ervative, conciliatory, and union 

loving State of North Carolina; the Jacl 
Democracy of Tennessee, nine out of twelve 
rotes; the tried and true Democracy of Kentucky) 

seven and a half out of twelve vote-: part id' the 
I ) in...'! :i v of Missouri ; the entire delegations of 

California and of Oregon; seven and a half votes 

from the Keystone of the Union — Pennsylvania; 
•!'._, from old true blue \e\\ Jersey; ' s rotes from 

the State of M as-achusel ts.; 1 from Minnesota; 

}4 a vote from Vermont; 1% from Connecticut, 

who had been left in that body when the COttOB 
States seceded on principle, when they found it 
was no longer a Democratic Convention, but was 
a Douglas Convention, composed of men who 
had been in the Democratic ranks, but who were 
now denying the creed of their fathers; and when 
they saw that Convention in part composed of 
Whigs and Know-Nothings, who had never given 
a Democratic vote— these Democratic States re- 
tired from that body. Why.' Did Yancey lead 
them? Did he pull the wool over their eyes? 
Had he seduced them? If he had this intluence, 
why did he not exercise this mighty power at 
Charleston, where gladly he would have done it 
had he been able? Why, gentlemen, it is child's 
play to talk to sensible men in that way. These 
old Democratic States, distinguished for their 
caution and their prudence, were not to lie led 
astray. These States left the National Demo- 
cratic body (as it was called) there, alone because 
its organization had fallen into the hands of men 
who thought more of the fortunes of Mr. Doug- 
las than they did of the Constitution of their 
country or the Democracy. [Applause.] The-e 
men and these States were driven outside. Yet 
still Douglas could not get the necessary two 
third vote, and counseling together they said : 
"We have done all that is in the wit of man to 
devise, now let us have a I allot." 

What was the result on balloting. They had 
two ballots for the Presidential candidate. I 
now come in my statement in conflict with the 
assertion of Mr. Douglas himself, and with the 
recorded assertion of his National Committi e at 
Washington — the committee of the National 
Democratic party — as they call themselves— 
[laughter] — the Executive Committee of the 
Douglas party at Washington. Mr. Douglas, in 

his letter of acceptance, say- that, on looking 
into the record, he find- he was nominated in a 
Convention con aining more than two thirds of 
the electoral votes according to the usage of the 
party. His committee sav in their address that 
he was nominated in a C invention containing 

i e than tWO-thirds Of all the electoral votes, 

and that he was Dominated after the precedent of 
the party. They state: 

•'On motion of Mr. Clark, of Missouri, at the in- 
stance of Mr. Boge, of Virginia, the question was 
id,.,, p, poundi d bj the Chair, whether the nomina- 
tion of Douglas should or should not be, without 
further ceremony, the unanimoufl act of the Conven- 
tion, ami of all the delegates present: the chairman 
distinctly requesting that any delegate who r»bj ict- 
ed, (whether or not having voted,) should signify h.s 



dissent. No delegate dissented, and that, at last, 
twas Stephen A. Douglas unanimously nominated in 
<a Convention representing more than two thirds of 
.all the electoral vote, as the candidate of the Demo- 
cratic party for the presidency of the United States." 

Both Mr. Douglas-, the organ of the party and 
| its Chief, and his National Committee, assert and 
proclaim to the people that he was nominated by 
,over two thirds. Now, it is a grave matter at all 
1 times to differ on a question of fact with gcntle- 
)men of distinction, and gentlemen of character; 
,but I not only do differ with them, but I pro- 
inounce the statement to be in every particular 
] incorrect. There is no one word of truth in it — 
i either in the assertion of Mr. Douglas or in the 
, address of his National Committee. This I shall 
j proceed to prove; for I would not dare to make 
(such an assertion without having the proof, 
i I have the regularly reported proceedings of 
I that body at Baltimore, where there were steno- 
graphers who took down every word that was 
uttered, every laugh that was heard, and every 
applause that was made. Here it was as it ap- 
peared, the next morning, in the Baltimore Ameri- 
can, and they dare not deny it; in fact, no man 
1 ever will deny it, and it will sustain me in what I 
1 shall say here. 

Two ballots were taken; on the first ballot 
1D01.2 votes only were cast, lacking 11)^ of being 
'two thirds. Mr. Douglas received on that ballot 
173^2 votes, lacking 2S}4 of two thirds. After 
this attempt, therefore, to nominate him by a two 
third vote — after they had got in these bogus 
j delegations, and after other delegations had cast 
spurious votes, votes that were not in the Con- 
vention nor in the other, he still lacked that num- 
'ber. When that appeared Mr. Church, of New 
' York, got up and moved a resolution, which was 
that Stephen A. Douglas, having received two 
' thirds of the votes given in this Convention, is 
' hereby declared the nominee of the Democratic 
party, and so on. Mr. Church did not pretend 
that there were two thirds of the electoral college 
in that Convention; he did not pretend that Doug- 
las had received a two third vote. The very 
resolution that he proposed declares that he only 
received two thirds of the votes given; but Doug- 
las says, and his committee say, that he received 
two thirds of all the electoral college. Mr. 
Church said that his resolution was to alter the 
construction given of the rule at Charleston. 
Mind you, my friends, that construction was the 
old rule of the party; it had been voted upon and 
had been sustained by the party. That construc- 
tion was not repealed; but he proposed to make 
the nomination in spite of it — against it — and 
why? Because two thirds were not in the body. 
After he had offered the resolution, Mr. Davis, of 
Virginia, one of the Douglas voters that were 
there, got up and made some remarks in relation 
to it. What did he say? I read from the debate 
in the Convention on that resolution showing how 
they adopted it, and showing that they acknowl- 
edged and conceded that they did not have the 
two thirds. If I do that, I put on this document 
and on Mr. Douglas' letter of acceptance a great 
responsibility. Mr. Davis, of Va., said: 

"On the ballot taken to-day, as I understand the 
announcement from the Chair, some 1110 votes were 
cast in this Covention. Now, how in the name of 



common sense do you expect to get two thirds of the - 
votes of the electoral college?" * * * 

" We are called upon now to do what we ought to" 
have done at Charleston." — 

But mind you, my friends, which was not 
done.— 

"Otherwise we stay here and ballot, and ballot, 
and ballot, without ever nominating. If we had 
adopted this resolution at Charleston^ as we ought 
to have done, we would have concluded long since." 

What did Mr. Gittings, of Maryland, sayT 
He got up and said: 

"I rise to enter a protest on the part of the con- 
stituency I represent, and a large portion, almost the 
entire majority of the Democratic voters of the 
State of Maryland, against this resolution. The 
rule was laid down at Charleston that two thirds of 
the electoral college— 2li2 votes— should be required 
to nominate. But that rule is one of the cardinal 
principles for the government of Democratic Con- 
ventions, and better not make a nomination at all 
than rescind a rule for the purpose of making any 
one man a candidate." 

And Mr. Gittings, mind you, voted for Mr- 
Douglas all the time. 

What said the Chairman? The Chairman of 
the Convention said; 

"The present occupant of the Chair will not feol 
at liberty, under that direction, to declare any one 
nominated until he gets 202 votes, unless the Con- 
vention shall otherwise instruct him." 

"Church's resolution was to instruct him to do- 
otherwise. 

Again, what was said by Mr. Gittings: 

"I cannot for my life view the matter in that light, 
I believe the rule was laid down at Cincinnati, and 
when the instructions were given to the President of 
this Convention at Charleston, to construe that rule 
to mean two thirds of the vote of the electoral col- 
lege, that instruction became the rule. I hope we 
will adhere to the rule. I have voted fifty times for 
Mr. Douglas, and will yote fifty times more for him 
if that will secure his nomination. I hope he will 
be nominated." 

Then what said another gentleman, Mr. Hoge r 
of Virginia? He says: 

"If gentlemen in this bndy decline to vote, I wilt 
treat them as out of the Convention;, and if there is 
not enough votes then given to make up a two third 
vote of the electoral college, I will myself move to 
declare the nomination unanimous." 

He asks them not to adopt the rule then, but 
to take another ballot, and very likely gentlemen 
would vote; and if not, he would then treat them 
as out of the Convention, and he would move to 
declare the nomination unanimous. 

What did Flournoy say? You have heard him, 
and I want you to hear what sort of a man he is 
for a Democrat. He said that he " now consid- 
ered himself absolved from the instructions of his 
State Convention, and had great pleasure in cast- 
ing the vote of Arkansas for Stephen A. Doug- 
las." / 

What absolved him from the instructions of his 
State Convention? The wants of Douglas. He 
wanted a two third vote, and he could not get it. 
The blanket had to be stretched a little more, 
and he says: "I consider, under the circumstances, 
that Douglas is mighty poor, and wants votes. I 
will not obey my instructions any more, but will 
vote for Douglas." They now took a vote. They 
would not press the resolution to a vote, but they 
proceeded to a second ballot, and they stretched 
the vote up to 194)^, all cast, and 181}^ cast for 



Douglas; the balance for Breckinridge and Guth- 
rie, 1 believe it was, Douglas lacking -!•'._.. 

The moment it was found that they could not get 
two thirds — the moment it was ascertained mat 
they were not there, and thai they need DOt Bit 
longer in hopes of getting them, they then, mi 
motion of Mr. Clark, passed Church's resolution, 
ns follows: 

"Resolved unanimously, That Stephen A. Dong- 
las, of the State of Illinois having now received 
two thirds of all the votes given in this Convention, 
is hereby declared, in accordance with the uniform 
customs and rules of former Democratic National 
Conventions, the regular nominee of the Democratic 
(arty of the United States, tor the office of Presi- 
dent of the United States." 

Now, here is an open confession in the records 
of their own body that they did not have two 
thirds in their Convention, and that they might 
ballot and ballot till doomsday and not succeed 
in making a nomination, and that they would 
nominate him any way by two thirds of the body 
present. Therefore it is, I say, when Mr. Doug- 
las says he was nominated by a two thirds vote, 
and when his committee say so, they both assert 
that which is not so in fact. The records of the 
Convention prove it on them, and the debates in 
that Convention show that this thing was entirely 
an after-thought; for at the time the resolution 
was passed, it was passed on the avowal that they 
did nut have two thirds. 

If you take out the spurious votes from that 
body, you will find he did not get what even ap- 
pears on the record. Massachusetts had but 13 
votes in all — 26 delegates — each having half a 
vote. Sixteen seceded and went into the Conven- 
tion that nominated Breckinridge and Lane, and 
10 delegates were left in the Douglas Convention. 
But Massachusetts, like Flournoy, disobeyed the 
rules of the party and of honesty. Each man 
cast a whole vote when he had but half a one to 
give ; in other words, Massachusetts had 10 dele- 
gates, who cast ten votes. Two votes from New 
York were in our Convention, and yet those left 
cast the whole vote of New York for Douglas. 
One half vote from Vermont was in our Conven- 
tion. That made no difference to the Douglas 
men. They cast the whole of the vote of that 
State for Douglas. One from Minnesota was in 
our Convention, and two were absent from both, 
and yet the whole vote was cast for Douglas. 
Thus you find that these votes, making nine spu- 
rious votes added to the fifteen from Louisiana 
and Alabama, not representing the Democracy of 
those States, but which were bogus, make some- 
thing like twenty-four, all of which were cast for 
Douglas — you take that number from one hun- 
dred and eighty one and one half, and there are 
left but one hundred and fifty-seven and one half 
Votes, which were all, in reality, that were cast 
for him in his own Convention — or, in other words, 
he was forty-six votes short of two thirds. 

These are the figures — these are the records of 
the party ; and these figures and records show 
you that these Douglas documents being circula- 
ted among you are to be received with a great 
deal of caution. • 

Now, I do not contend that Breckinridge and 
Lane are the nominees of the Democratic i arty, 
according to its usages, because they did not get 
two thirds of the Electoral College. But 1 main- 



tain that Mr. Douglas stands on tin- -ame looting 

as Mr. Breckinridge in that particular, lie did 
nut receive two thirds. The Oust that he got a 
majority is nothing, became numbers do not al 

ways count in our gu\ eminent. For instance, the 

Democracy may have a hundred thousand votes in 

New York, and yet they oan'l cast a single elec- 
toral vote for the Democratic candidati — while 

there are in the State of Alabama, perhaps 50,000, 

only half of the number in New York- Bat the 
50,000 in Alabama cast nine rotes for the Presii 

dency, Or 50,000 VOteS in Alabama are constitu- 
tionally greater than 100,000 in New York.—) 
Therefore, although Mr. Douglas may have re- 
ceived more than a majority in numbers, vet it 
was not the constitutional majority required by 
the party — which is two bundled and two votes 
out of three hundred and three. It not being a 

constitutional majority, he has no more right to 
be called the nominee of the Democratic partt 
than if he had received but one vote. [Applause.] 

But how is it as to Mr. Herschel V. Johnson 
How many votes did he receive? Not one ! 
[Much laughter.] He was not even nominated in 
the Convention. He was a candidate for admis- 
sion as a delegate to that body, but he was so poor 
a Democrat — he was so bad a Douglas man — that 
they would not let him in. He belonged to a 
minority of forty of two hundred and eighty 
members of the State Convention of Georgia. 
Forty fellows were for Douglas, and two hundred 
and forty for Breckinridge — for the seceders and 
the Democratic platform. And when they were 
voted down, these Douglas men, that have such a 
perfect horror of seceders — that have such a hor- 
ror of bolters — these Douglas men, that think a 
seceder coming in the shape of Yancey, comes in 
the shape of the devil ! — these fellows thought 
then that bolting was a pretty good thing, and 
the forty men held a convention of their own, and 
they sent Johnson to Baltimore to be a delegate. 
Douglas could not stomach that, however. Said 
lie, " You are a seceder. Now, if you had done 
as I told you— if you had held a little convention 
of your own, and not mixed up with those fellows, 
we could have admitted you — we could have 
violated the will of the majority; but we are just 
now giving these seceders blazes, [laughter.] and 
we shall be estopped." Johnson was only a sece- 
der, and he had so little merit in him then as a 
Douglas Democrat, that the Douglas Democracy, 
bad as it was, could not stomach him. They re- 
fused him admittance 

Now, after Gov. Fit/.patrick had declined the 
nomination, saying 1 cannot accept the nomination 
of a party that has denied all the Democratic prin- 
ciples — a party that has driven out the Democratic 
States. Virginia, North Carolina] and Tennessee 
a party that did not have two thirds in it, and had 
no right to make a nomination at all ; tiny went 
into the bar-room of the National Hotel at Wash 
ington, and they found Johnson para-Hug around 
right mad that the Douglas men had nOt owned 
him, and they patted him on the shoulder and 
said to him, " to be sure you are pretty much of 
a fire-eater. You used to eat hot coals with 
Yancey, but still we are pretty hard poshed tor 
a Vice President] and we will run you " The 
Convention had all gone home — it had adjourned 
sine die, but that is no odds, M we will make you 



10 



'Vice President," and they made him, and he says, 
J" oh, yes, 1 will accept." And now they claim 
.} that he was nominate! by two thirds, and he never 
<got a vote in any Convention. [Applause ] 

Now, I want to know what any good honest 

'{Democrat, who says " I am not much of a scholar 

-.and not over learned, and whenever my party acts 

-according to rule, I am going to take their 

^judgment — I believe it is better than my own." 

t jl want to know what a good, honest, hard-fisted 

] Democrat like that is going to say to such a ticket? 

jjl want to know what he will say when the head 

lUnau on the ticket says he got a two third vote, 

( "when the men in the Convention said that he did 

.not get it? What do you think of that, gentlemen? 

.The party that has to sustain itself by misrepresent 

stations of that character — -the party that has so 

little Democracy in it — the party that has so little 

, claim upon the Democracy of the country, that 

' it needs to be bolstered up by assertions of that 

'kind, which the records of the party show are not 

true — is that a party entitled to the confidence of 

.'the country — of you, the life-long Democrats of 

'Tennessee? [No ! No ! No ! No !] 

l' But, they say, although we are not the regular 

/nominees, we are as good as you. They must, 

'however, take down Herschel V. Johnson. They 

themselves declared he was bogus in their Con- 

' vention. He has no right anywhere. He had no 

right in that Convention, and he was never voted 

i for for Vice President by anybody but George E. 

Pugh, of Ohio, and Rust, of Arkansas, and a tew 

like them. 

| But, they say, "we stand on better principles 
than you do." There is the great question after 
all. These questions of nomination are only evi- 
, dences to the people of who is the choice of the 
' Democracy. The party has required that the 
man should have a vote equal to two thirds of 
' the Electoral College. What for? Simply be- 
t cause, when a man receives that vote, it is evi- 
dence to the Democracy that that man is the 
choice of the Democracy of the country. You 
want to get at the man who is the choice of the 
party, and you take that vote as the record to tell 
vou that man. But when no one gets it, what 
have you to do? Then you have to do as other 
men do in the ordinary affairs of life. See who 
the men are — examine into their lives — see what 
principles they profess — who supports them — do 
they represent, in a true degree, the feelings, sen- 
timents, and wishes of the Democratic masses — 
and the man that comes nearest to representing 
the principles, sentiments, and wishes of the 
Democratic masses, that man you will take as 
die choice of the Democracy. 

In the Convention that nominated Douglas 
there did not remain a majority from a single 
Democratic State in the Union. There are sev- 
snteen of them at this day. Fifteen Southern 
States and California and Oregon are seventeen 
Democratic States, all giving Democratic major- 
ties. The other States are now controlled, I 
jelieve every one of them, by Black Republican 
lovernora and Black Republican Legislatures. 
~)t' all these Democratic States, Mr. Douglas re- 
.eived hill" the vote from the State of Missouri 
mly. The majority of every other Democratic 
-^tate was against him, and he received only a 
minority. For instance, of the one hundred and 



twenty Southern votes he received only eighteen 
votes. Of the seven Democratic votes of the 
North (and that is all that we have at present) 
he did not receive one, where he pretended he is 
so strong. Then if he did not receive a majority 
of these States, he is not the choice of the Dem- 
ocratic States in the Union. The only State that 
he received half the vote of is doubtful whether 
he or the other gets the other half as the choice 
of a maj irity. That is to be left in doubt. He 
did receive votes, however, from all the Black 
Republican States — from New England, Ohio, 
Indiana, New York, Illinois, Maine, and Iowa, 
and other Black Republican States. Mr. Breck- 
inridge received nearly the entire vote of the 
Democratic masses and the Democratic States. 

Let us go further. Every Democratic candi- 
date that you have ever had for the Presidency 
that is living, and therefore, men presumed to 
have represented the wishes of the party of the 
day, is now for Breckinridge and opposed to 
Douglas. [Applause.] Gen, Cass is for Breck- 
inridge and opposed to Mr. Douglas. Gen. Wil- 
liam O. Butler, of Kentucky, a candidate for the 
Vice Presidency with Mr. Cass, is for Mr. Breck- 
inridge and agiinst Mr. Douglas. Gen. Pierce, 
thought to be one of the best Presidents we ever 
had, is for Breckinridge and against Douglas. 
Mr Buchanan, the head of your party now, is for 
Breckinridge and against Douglas. The whole 
Cabinet of Mr. Buchanan — Cobb, Thompson, 
Toucey, and Black, and Holt, and Cass — all 
of them are for Breckiinidge, and against Mr. 
Douglas. Eijiht out of ten Senators of the 
Northern States — Democratic Senators- — are for 
Mr. Breckinridge, and against Mr. Douglas. We 
are apt to think that these eminent men were put 
there because they were leading Democrats, and 
sound and influential men, who have done some 
service to their party. Eight tenths of the North- 
ern Democratic Senators are for Breckinridge, 
and against Douglas. The Senator from Ore- 
gon, Gwin and Latham from California, Rice 
from Minnesota. Bright, and his colleague, Fitch, 
of Indiana, and Biglcr of Pennsylvania. Four 
fifths of the Democracy, as repre-ented in the 
Senate of the United States from the North, are 
for our candidate, and against Douglas, and yet 
they tell you tint Mr. Douglas is mighty strong 
at the North— weak here, but strong the e — and 
when you get there, they will tell you he is most 
strong in Tennessee and Alabama, although weak 
there. Go to the House of Representatives, and 
four fifths of the Democratic Representatives 
North and South, are for Breckinridge and Line, 
and against Douglas and Johnson. Look at Fitz- 
patrick, the man they thought worthy to be sec- 
ond on their ticket, and he repudiaies Douglas 
and is for Breckinridge. Every Democratic 
member of Congress from this State is for Breck- 
inridge. Every Democratic member of Congress 
from my State, with the exception of Houston, is 
for Breckinridge, and against Douglas. Every 
Representative of a Southern State in the Senate, 
is for Breckinridge and against Douglas; and all 
the men whose names are valued and held in 
honor by our party, are for Breckinridge and 
against Douglas. Look at Hallett, of Massa- 
chusetts, the great platform-maker of the Dem- 
ocracy, and Cushing. They are for Breckinridge, 



11 



mid against Douglas Go to New York and look 
nt the noblest Roman of them all, Daniel S. Dick- 
inson. [Much applause.] He is for Breckiurid] e, 
and against Douglas. 

Now, what arc urn to say' Will you put up 
llhose broken-down politicians, Soule, Forsythe, 
Clemens, and your Footes, against this mighty 
array of genius. When did ever John '-'• Breck- 
inridge war on a Democrat? [VoiceSi "Never." 
Applause] Winn did Joe Lane? [Voices, 
">. \ er." Applause.] All the wars lie has been 
engaged in have been against the enemies of 
your country and the enemies of your Constitu- 
tion. 

1, loking, thereforej to all these outside tests — 
looking to association — looking at the men — 
looking at the wars of the party — Looking at the 
men who have done your service, and whom you 
love and honor, and will honor and lore as long 
a** life remains — you find the masses of them in 
favor of the Democratic candidates, and the 
Democratic ticket. Therefore, pause, my coun- 
trymen who are for Douglas— pause and see if 
you are not in the wrong crowd. 

But where has been Mr. Douglas for two years 
past ! Warring on the Democracy that he now 



and the i eo >on « a that Kansas had a pro Blaverj 
Constitution! 

Vei he says thai the South has caused this 
issue to lie reopened unneces at ily. Hi 
thai Alabama threw this firebrand before the 
country unnecessarily. He says, and you Dou 
las men and your papers say that 1 — a priva i 
individual, occupying no position in thecountrj — 
that 1 have thrown this firebrand upon the coun- 
try. 1 prove by the records and history of the 
country that before this Alabama platform was 
written — when 1 was not yet heard of at all — he 
was interfering and making an issue against the 
Constitution, against the Kansas bill, against 
\our rights, and sending that Constitution back 
to Kansas, and the result was it n as overwhelmed 
before the free-soil tide, and finally a free-soil 
Constitution was sent to Congress. What then I 
But three northern Democrats were found to vote 
against its admission, although the census had 
not been taken, and although she had not 70,000 
people required by the English bill. No census 

had as yet been taken, and yet Mr. Douglas and 

his friends could admit Kans is in violation of the 
English bill, because it presented a free Boil C< n- 
stitution. But when she came according to bis 
own Kansas bill, with her own Constitution, 



Is to be the best, exponent of. No sooner made and adopted in her own way, and CongT 3 



(tad the South procured an advantage under the 
K 'i aas Nebraska bill, an 1 sent the Territory of 
Kansas to the dour of Congress with a slave 
Constitution, thin he commenced a war upon the 
Democracy. Why, it would seem that his own 
darling idei that the people there were fit to act 
in their own way, subject only to the limitations 
of the Constitution, would have prevented this. 
One at leist would have supposed it would have 
prevented his voice from warrins against the 



was pledged it' site did so to admit her, Mr. 
Douglas was the first man, two \i.ir- ago, to set 
the example of intervention, and by the aid of the 
abolition party lie succeeded in defeating that 
Constitution and sending it back to Kansas. Yet 
he has the hardihood, and his friends have got 
the nerve to look honest Southern men in the 
face and say "you fellows here are creating a 

disturbance in the Democratic party by making 
this issue unnecessarily " This, too, when the 



Democracy when Kansas came to Congress with ; whole country is filled by the bo!:' r n-js — the ri - 
the Lecompton Constitution; and your President, suit of Douglas' making war on the Kansas bill , 
lead of vour party, in accordance with his and then saying "not only do 1 make war on the 



duty, as a statesman and Democrat, roe oninended 

to Congress to admit Kansas under that Consti- 
tution. But no sooner had the voice of the Clerk 
ceased reading the message, than Mr. Douglas 
bounced to his feet — commenced a war on the 
Democracy — in the principles of the Kansas bill 
— on the Constitution — on the Democratic Presi- 
dent, and on his brother Senators. He thru 
threw down the glove and the gauntlet. He vio- 
lated his own loved doctrine of •'non-interven- 



Democratic party here in Congress, but I will 
not take the nomination of the party unless it 
indorses the principle upon which I made that 
war on the part*." [ \pplae i 

li.ii' las says "I am abetter Democrat than 
Breckinridge, although I have warred on Democ- 
racy tor two y< irs— although every Democratic 
Senator, except Mr. Pugh, of 0. i >, is against 
me." Strange, indeed, is it that a man of genius 
nd power SO great should bo in the Senate of the 



tion;" and although the people of Kansas had United Siates so many years fighting forDemoc- 

adopted i heir own Constitution, and had submit- racy, and yet not a solitary Dcmoi at be found by 

ted the slavery clause to the masses, and theyhad his side save hisdarling Pugh. | Vpplause.] Ev- 

aBnrOved it— and come to Congress and said this erv Democratic Southern Senator is against htm, 



is my way of m iking a Constitution — .Mr. Doug 
las rises in his place and wars on his own favorite 
doctrine, and called up >n Congress to intervene 
and to -end b ick that Constitution to an Ab ili- 
tion majority — a packed jury, who h id just taken 
a vote and shown that theyhad ten men to our 
five. If his principle was right, that 'he people 
of a territory Bhould form and regulate their own 
domestic institutions in their own way, Bubjeet 



and four fifths of the Democratic Si natort of the 
North, and he is alone able to defeat the Democ- 
racy bv the aid of Seward and the IMack Repub- 
lican hosts coming to and voting with him. 
Mr. Douglas says in his last speech in tl 
ate of the United States, where he undertakes to 
assail the State of Alabama and your humble 

speaker, that the South has forced a new i~-ne 
upon the country of this kind— that she is forcing 



only to the Constitution of the United State — I slavery on a people who do not desire it. He 

want to know if he was not wrong when be said, Bays that the Northern people wish to force 

"You have not mule this Constitution in my slavery from a people who wish to retain it, and 

way, and I will send it back." The first man to the South is endeavoring to force slavery upon a 

Fet' the example of violating his own ere 'pie who do not desire it. Don t every mm in 

"non-intervention" was Stephen A. Douglas; this vast assembly know that this is ulse? ffllat 



12 



(\ platform of the Democratic party has ever pro- 
,1 , claimed the principle that the government should 
'Jj force slavery anywhere where it is not wanted? 
',, What speaker of the Democratic party has ever 
E advocated such a doctine? What organs of the 
..j Democracy have ever enunciated such a doctrine? 
;'., What individual has ever got up and proclaimed 
T that that was a principle of the South? I defy 
■js his friends, whether in the editorial corps or on 
1 "l the stump, to tell the people, the first opportunity 
'jl they get, where is the man, or when and where 
1'tany body of the Democracy made the proposi- 
'!j tion. It becomes the gentleman who makes a 
l¥ statement of that kind to give the proof. I know 
>'j of no such body. Because a Southern man goes 
"V to Kansas with his slave and demands that it 
'l t shall not be taken away from him, is that forcing 
,! ] slavery on the people? Does it interfere at all 
! f with the principle of self-government if you shall 
I j leave your neighbor alone? I want to know how 
jj, it interferes with the people of Kansas governing 
, themselves to require them to leave their neigh- 
: t bors alone with their slaves? How does it inter- 
im fere with the Abolitionist and his wooden nut- 
■ megs, his clocks and his mulr, that I should be 
1 T allowed to go and settle on my farm with my ne- 
J|j groes? Is it the privilege of self-government to 
' t destroy your neighbor's property? I don't know 
% of any such privilege anywhere. You have no 
' r such privilege in the State of Tennessee. What 
' f privilege has any citizen in the State of Teunes- 
j see to take the property belonging to his neigh- 
j bor? It may be a penitentiary privilege. [Laugh- 
ter.] What right have you got in the Legisla- 
t ture to pass a law to say that your neighbor shall 
, not own a negro? I know of no such right in 
, Tennessee. There is none such in Alabama. 
j There can't be here. It is against the Constitu- 
j tion of the country. Your right to govern your- 
t self consists in taking care of yourself— but in 
( taking care of yourself it involves no privilege to 
. take from me any right that I have. [Applause.] 
J But Douglas says that it does, and if you do 
i undertake to go to the Territory and take a negro 
» the government shall not protect you in holding 
^ that slave, and otherwise it is forcing slavery on 
I a people that do not desire it. I do not reco"- 
r nize the reasoning. 

t We do say that the Constitution cannot intro- 
j. duce slavery anywhere, but we also say that it 
, cannot take it from us in the territories, but that 
, wherever you go and whatever your property con- 
sists of or may be, the Constitution shall protect 
t you in the enjoyment of it. The Constitution 
I does not make property, neither does it destroy 
I property. But it is the object of all governments 
to protect you in three things — -in your life, liber- 
.■ ty and property. If vou have got property, you 
I are entitled to protection. If you have not °-ot 
, it, you don't need protection. Therefore, while 
i we deny the right of the Government to prohibit, 
i we also deny the right of the Government to 
I establish slavery, but at the same time we say 
i that this is all consistent with the idea of my 
having the choice to establish slavery by my 
- going into the territories and that I am entitled 
to protection. The Constitution is there before 
, I go there, and it protects me with my property as 
^ much as it protects the Abolitionist with his. 
~ Yet Mr. Douglas tries to make you believe 



that the two sections of the country are warring 
unconstitutionally upon each other— the North 
demanding the abolition of slavery wherever it 
exists, and the South seeking by law and by the 
Government to force slavery upon an unwilling 
people. It is not so. I demand the proof from 
any gentleman when he has the opportunity of 
giving it. 

The next point that he made was that the doc- 
trine of non-intervention by Congress either to 
establish or prohibit slavery was indorsed by the 
Democratic party in the Compromise measures of 
1850 and by the Kansas act in 1854, and in the 
Cincinnati platform of 1856. 1 deny every soli- 
tary assertion. There is not a word of truth in 
the whole of it. But, on the contrary, it is true 
that the Southern doctrine was indorsed by the 
Compromise measures of 1850, and that doctrine 
was, and is, non intervention to prohibit or estab- 
lish, but protection against unconstitutional legisla- 
tion. 

I shall prove that. I should like to have Mr. 
Douglas prove his own assertions, but in his 
absence I shall undertake to disprove them. I 
have here the Compromise measures of 1850. In 
the second Territorial bill you will find at its 
close the doctrine of non-intervention as contend- 
ed for by Mr. Breckinridge and Lane, and as con- 
tended for by myself and all other intelligent 
friends of the Democracy. Here it is: 

"And provided further, That whfcn admitted as a 
State, the said Territory, or any portion o ' the same, 
shall be received into ihe Lnion with or without 
slavery, as their Constitution may prescribe at the 
time of their admission." 

There is the doctrine of non-intervention. It 
is that Congress cannot establish slavery when it 
makes an organic law for a Territory, neither can 
it prohibit it. You cannot establish it by the 
organic law. You can't prohibit it by law, and 
it goes on to say that the States shall be received 
into the Union with or without slavery, as their 
Constitutions shall prescribe 

Douglas has gone farther than that, and said that 
that construction is erroneous. I want to do him 
no injustice. He tells you in his serenade speech, 
and in his letter of acceptance, and in his great 
speech, that his doctrine of non-intervention was 
incorporated into the act of 1850. He tells you 
it was the essential living principle of the Com- 
promise of 1850, and it was introduced by the 
country into the Kansas-Nebraska act and into 
the Cincinnati platform, and, therefore, his con- 
struction of the platform is the true one. I deny 
it. I have shown you how far non-intervention is 
in that act. The balance, as he gives it, is not 
there Return to the seventh section of the aet, 
and you will see I am right. 

He says in his Harper article: 
"This exposition of the history of these measures 
shows, conclusively, that the authors of the Compro- 
mise measures of 1850, and of the Kansas-Nebraska 
aet of J834, as well as the members of the Continent- 
al Congress of 17*4. and the founders of our system 
of government subsequent to the Revolution, re- 
garded the people of the Territories and Colonies as 
political communities which were entitled to a free 
and exclusive power of legislation in their Provin- 
cial Legislatures, where their representation could 
alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation and 
internal polity. This right pertains to the people 
collectively as a law-abiding and peaceful com- 
munity, and not to the isolated individuals who 



13 



may wander apon the public domain in \ iolation of 
taw." 

He contended that Kansas lias now an exclu 
Bive power of legislation, and that this exclusive 
power of legislation was indorsed by the great 
Compromise measures of l-;Vi, and, Bays Be, it' 
von under td ke to destroy that principle, "where 
will von Bud another Clay or another Webster to 
rise up and calm the agitated waters?" 

1 Bhowyou the doctrine that I contend for, and 
that Breckinridge and Lane contend for, is that 
Congress shall not interfere to prevent the admis- 
sion of a Territory when she may come with a 
Constitution allowing slavery; but I say that Con- 
gress can interfere when the Legislature passes 
an unconstitutional aet. So say the South. 80 
said .the Compromise measures in the seventh 
section that I have read. But, alter giving the 
power of legislation subject to the constitution, it 
goes on to say: 

"Skc. 10. And all laws passed by the Legislative 
Assembly and Governor shall be submitted to the; 
Congress of the United Srn t<-s, and, if disapproved, 
shall be null and id' no effect." 

Therefore, you see, I have disproved Mr. Doug- 
las' assertion, and proven that this doctrine of his 
finds no root in the Compromise of 1S5U. Well, 
if it does not find root there — if, on the contrary, 
the Southern Breckinridge doctrine, now contend- 
ed for and sustained by the Supreme Court, is 
there — is it true that the Kansas-Nebraska aet 
lias that measure of Squatter Sovereignty in it 
which he claims? I deny it. The South con- 
tended for this principle of the Compromise of 
1850, that Congress should neither establish nor 
prohibit slavery, nor prohibit the admission of a 
slave State. Mr. Douglas had taken up the 
Squatter Sovereignty notions of Gen. Cass, of 
that day, and declared that the Territories had 
the exclusive power of legislation, and that Con- 
gress had no power to interfere, but that it must 
lie left to the courts of the country. But Doug- 
las and the South agreed upon that bill. How? 
I will show you they agreed to disagree. I will 
not read you other authority on that question. 
In the Senate of the United States he undertook 
to show you that they agreed to disagree — that 
the South did not maintain its doctrine of pro- 
tection, and he did not maintain his doctrine of 
Squatter Sovereignty, but they agreed to leave it 
to the Supreme Court of the United States, and 
he undertook to say that Mr. Hunter expressed 
what he meant by the bill better than he could, 
and he read, or asked Mr. Pugh to read, what 
Mr. Hunter had said. 
Mr. Douglas said: 

" Mr. President, the record is so full, so explicit on 
this matter, that there i- no room for misconstruc- 
tion, 'flic only point on which any body differed. 
so far as I know, was the simple one of the extent of 
the limitation imposed by the constitution on the 
Territorial Legislature. That was the point referred 
to the courts. * * * I will trouble the Senate 
only with one authority on that point, and 1 quote 
him simply because of his eminent character, and 
the respect this body and tin- country have for him. 
1 m -an Mr. Hunter, of Virginia. 

" Mr. Pugh read the following extract from Mr. 
Hunter's speech of February 24, 1854: 

"• The hill provides that the Legislatures of these 
Territories -hall have power to legislate over all 
rightful subjects of legislation consistently with the 
Constitution. And if they should assume pavers 

which are thought to be inconsistent with the Con- 



stitution, the Courts win dooide the qnestii n wher- 
ever it may be raised. There is a difference "i ■ pin- 
ion among the friends i f this tn< osuro a- i.. tb< 
tenl of the limit- which the Cunstitutu u imp 
upon the Territorial Legislatures. The bill pro- 
!,, loave these differenoi - to the dccisii n • i the 
Courts. To thai tribunal I am willing to leave this 
deoision, as it was once before propu by 

the oelobratod < lompromiseof i bo Senator from Del- 
aware (Mr. Clayton) - ,i measure, which, aeeo 
ti. my understanding, was the b nise 

which was offered upon this Bubject of slavery, i 
say, then, that I am willing to leave this point, upon 
which the friend- of the bill are at difference, to the 
decision of the Courts ' 

"There." says Mr. Douglas, "Mr. Hunter states 
the object of the loll as explicitly and a- clearly as 
ii i- possible for any man holding my opinions to 

sta le it." 

Here is Mr. Douglas' own confession. Herfl 

is his indorsement id' the opinion of Mr. Hunter, 
that the Kansas-Nebraska bill did not contain 
the doctrine of Squatter Sovereignty — and did 

j not contain the doctrine that the Territories had 
the exclusive power of legislation— and that Con- 
gress could not interfere there. Hut. say.- he. that 
is a question left for tin' courts to decide, by the 
bill. They agreed to disagree, ami the opinion 
of the Court, when delivered, should become the 
j law of the land. That is what he agreed to. 

Now, then, it is not true that the principle of 
I the Compromise measures of lP50is the Squatter 
| Sovereignty principle. It is equally untrue that 
i it is the principle of the act of lfc'54, the Kansas- 
Nebraska act, as. stated by Douglas; because he 
has admitted, and the record- of the country 
show, that the bill was adopted, the entertainers 
I of contrary opinions agreeing to disagree; and 
they left the whole question to be decided by the 
Courts. 

But he goes on and states, that in the Cincin- 
nati platform his principle was adopted. 1 deny 
that again. I say that the Cincinnati platform' 
adopted simply the agreement that the party had 
made when they passed the Kansas- Nebraska. 
bill. Here is what they say on that question: 

"And that we may more distinctly meet the issue. 
on which a sectional party, subsisting exclusively 
on slavery agitation, now relies to test the fidelity 
of the people, North and South, to the Constitution 

and the Uni j 

" ' h'< noloed, That claiming fellowship with, and 
desiring the oo-operati f all who regard the pre- 
servation of the Union under the Constitution as 
the paramount issue, and repudiating all, Bectional 
parties and platforms concerning domestic Blavery 
which seek to embroil the Stales and incite 
son and armed resistanoeto lawinthe Territories, 
and whose avowed purposes, if consummated, mustl 
end in civil war and disunion, the American Demo- 
cracy recognize and adopt the principles contained] 
in the organic laws establishing the Territories of 
Kansas and Nebraska, as embodying the only sound 
and safe solution of the slavery question, upon 
whieh the great national idea of the people oi tins 
whole country can repose in its determined conser- 
vatism of the Onion— non-interfen ace by Congress 
with slavery in State or Territory, or in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. . 

" ' Reiolved, That we recognise the right oi tno 
people of all the Territories, including Kansas and 
Nebraska. acting through the legally and fairly ex- 
pressed will of a majority of actual residents, and 
whenever the number oi their inhabitants justifies 

it , to form a Con-tit ut inn, with or without di lie -tie 

slavery, and be admitted into the 1 nion nppn tern 
of perfect equality with the other States."' 

I have shown you that the Compromise meas- 
ure- "f 1850 did not indorse Squatti r Sovereign- 
ty. 1 have shown that the Kansas-Nebraska bill 



14 



did not indorse it, but that it was an agreement 
for both parties to disagree, and leave it to the 
courts. The courts had not decided it when the 
Cincinnati platform was adopted. The Cincin- 
nati platform then but adopted and indorsed the 
agreement to disagree, and to leave it to the 
courts to decide, and would adopt the decision of 
the court whenever it was made. 

Now, then, as far as the Cincinnati platform 
speaks, it speaks on our side. If the Cincinnati 
platform meant to recognize the right of the peo- 
ple of the Territories to legislate on the subject 
of slavery without interference on the part of 
Congress, why did it not say so? Why was it that 
it skipped that right and said, "we recognize the 
right of the people of all the Territories, acting 
through the legally and fairly expressed will of 
the majority, to form a constitution?" It says 
nothing of the people of the Territory having the 
exclusive power to legislate. The right that is 
expressed was recognized in the legislation of 
1850, and the Kansas-Nebraska bill recognized 
that right,, and, therefore, the party indorsed it. 
But the Kansas-Nebraska bill did not recognize 
the right of exclusive legislation in the Territo- 
ries, and, therefore, the Cincinnati platform did 
not say a word on the subject. The Cincinnati 
platform took the Kansas-Nebraska act with the 
agreement to disagree, and to take the decision 
of the Supreme Court whenever it was rendered. 
I then say his principle was not in the legislation 
of 1*54, nor in the Cincinnati platform of lb56. 

But in 1857 the Supreme Court rendered the 
decision. Was that indorsed? Ah! gentlemen, 
there is the rub. It is useless for irie to read from 
that decision. It was in relation to Dred Scott, 
who claimed to be free because he had once lived 
in a Territory where slavery had been abolished 
by act of Congress. Dred Scott was at Fort 
Snelling, in the Territory of Minnesota. A local 
law also existed, declaring that slavery should 
not exist in the Territory, as well as the law of 
Congress, but that did not come up in the case. 
The question was. whether there was power any- 
where to take from the owner of Dred Scott his 
right of property because he chose to take that 
slave there. Seven of nine of the judges decided 
that Congress had no power to enact a law of the 
kind, and they went on to say: 

" The powers over person and property of which 
we speak — 

That is, the power of confiscating the slaves of 
the citizens of the slave-holding States, if they 
go into the Territories — 

—"Are not only not granted to Congress, but are in 
express terms denied, and they are forbidden to ex- 
ercise them. And this prohibition is not confined 
to thi' btates, Imt (lie words arc general, ami extend 
to the whole Territory over which the Constitution 
gives if power to legislate, including those portions 
"l il remainjng under Territorial Government, as 
well „s that covered by States. It is a total absence 
01 power everywhere within the dominion of the 
I oited States, ami places tlie citizens of a Territory, 
solar as these rights are concerned, on the same 
tootingwith the citizens of the States, and guards 
them as finals and plainly against any inroads 
whwli Ihe general government might at tempt under 
the plea ot implied or incidental powers: ami if Con- 
gress itself cannot do this— if it is beyond the pow- 
ers conferred on the Federal Government— it will ho 
admit! -!. wepresume, that it could not authorize a 
territorial Government I,, exercise them. Il could 
Confei no power on any local government establish- 



ed by its authority to violate the provisions of the 
Constitution." 

"And if thf Constitution recognizes the right of 
property of tin- master in a, slave, and maKes no dis- 
tinction between that description of properly and 
other property owned by a citizen, no tribunal, act- 
ing under the authority of the United States — 

And surely the Territorial Legislature, when 
organized, are acting under the authority of the 
United States — 

— "No tribunal, acting under the authority of the 

United States, whether it be Legislative, Execu- 
tive, or Judicial, has a right to draw such a distinc- 
tion, or deny to it the benefis of the provisions and 
guarantees which have been provided for the protec- 
tion of private property against the encroachments 
of the Government." 

The Supreme Court then decided that a Ter- 
ritorial Legislature, created by Congress, could 
not have the power to make a slave free when 
Congress did not have the power, and when all 
the power that Congress had in the language of 
the Constitution was " the power coupled with the 
duty to protect tie owner in his rights." 

There is the decision of the Supreme Court. 
It indorses the doctrine as contended for by 
Breckinridge and Lane, and the Democracy that 
support them. It indorses the doctrine that your 
constitutional rights, whatever they are, are as 
much entitled to protection as are the constitution- 
al rights of the Abolitionist or the Free-Soiler. It 
indorses the doctrine that one man is on a level 
with his brethren. 

The next time the question came up was when 
the Lecompton Constitution came before Con- 
gress. Then it was that Douglas had to take a 
position, and what did he say? I beg to call your 
attention to what he said as to submitting to the 
decision of the Supreme Court in this matter. 
Here is what he said in his debate with Lincoln 
when he was running in Illinois for the Senate. 

"It matters not what way the Supreme Court 
may hereafter decide as to the abstract question, 
whether slavery may or may not go into a Territory 
under the Constittrtio'n. The people have the law- 
ful means to introduce it, or exclude it as they 
please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a 
day or an hour anywhere unless it is supported by 
local police regulations. Those police regulations 
can only be established by the local Legislature, 
and if the people are opposed to slavery, i hey will 
elect representatives to that body, who will, by un- 
friendly legislation effectually prevent the introduc- 
tion of it into their midst, if, on the contrary, they 
are for it, their legislation will favor its extension. 
Hence, no matter what the decision of the Supreme 
Court may be on that abstract question, still, the 
right of the people to make a slave Territory or a 
free Territory is perfect and complete under the 
Nebraska bill." 

Here, then, is Mr. Douglas' denial that a de- 
cision of the Supreme Court would do the South 
any good under his construction of the Nebraska 
bill, and that, although he did make the South 
believe that by leaving it to the Courts, a final 
decision would be reached by which all parties 
would be governed — yet, he says, after the law 
is passed — talking to Northern people, trying to 
be elected over an Abolitionist — that under the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill, no matter what may the 
decision of the Supreme Court, under that bill, 
the people can make the Territory free — cm, by 
legislation, take away the constitutional rights of 
the slaveholder there, and Congress cannot pro- 
tect or interfere to protect. 

Now, there is Mr. Douglas' doctrine, and when 



15 



the Supreme Court came in :i i»> l made a decision 
against him, what then? He becomes reckless 
and desperate; and when Kansas (-'nine forward 
with the Lecpmpton Constitution, then it was 
tint he armed himself with all his weapons, 
offensh e and defensh e — allied himself with Sew- 
ard and tlic Black Republicans in Congress, and 
voted with them, and had the Constitution referred 
bark to the Abolition majority on the plains of 
Kansas. The South was willing to submit when 
Bver that majority spoke in Convention, but 
would nut submit thai thai Abolition majority 
should exclude her from going there even if it 
was a barren and abstract right, as he says. So 
it was our right, and it was officiously denied us 
lb strengthen an Abolition party. It became the 
South to stand up and see that the truth was 
vindicated <>n every occasion. 

Now I have shown you that the assertion of 
Douglas and his committee, thai this is Demo- 
cratic doctrine, is wrong, I have shown you that 
in 1850 we had the advantage. In 1854 we lost 

it somewhat, but I have shown you that finally — 
when the Supreme Court made its decision — we 
again had the advantage, and having the advant- 
age when we went to Charleston — he having said 
that he would have his platform or none at all — 
we felt when this question came up we would be 
less tli in nun if we did not take up the issue, for 
fear of disturbing the harmony of the party — for 
we claimed nothing but that equality that the 
Democracy has always given us. 

Douglas says in his letter of acceptance, that 
thi- Bection seeks to force slavery upon an un- 
willing people. That is talse as regards the South. 
The South has never attempted to aggrandize 
itself at the expense of the North. No Southern 
state-man that 1 have heard of has proclaimed a 
doctrine that would aggrandize the South at the 
expense of the North. All that we have asked, 
and all that I have asked, is, that we shall be 
equal with the North — all that we ask of the 
North is, aggrandize yourselves by your energy 
atnl industry, and tact, as much as you please, 
but do not trench upon our right. If, by the ex- 
ercise of equal rights, you can gain some advan- 
tage over the South, you are entitled to that advan- 
tage, and we will protect you in it; but you shall 
not aggrandize yourselves upon our rights. [A 
voice — " Hurrah for Yancey," and cheers.] 

Well now, gentlemen, I have shown you how 
tlit'-i' two parties stand — I have shown you that 
while neither obtained a regular nomination of 
the party, under its rules, yet there is a vast dis- 
tinction between the two men. They come before 
a Democratic assemblage, and I ask who ia the 
choice of the Democracy! I have shown you, by 
showing the position of the leaders of the Democ- 
racy, North and South. I have shown you that 
there is no comparison in the standing of the two 
men. I have shown you that Breckinridge and 
Lane are the representatives of the Democracy. 
[Applause.] I have gone back and shown you, as 
principle is concerned, that Douglas 1 prin- 
ciple of Squatter Sovereignty, denounced univer- 
sally, is far more dangerous and infamous than 
the Wilmot Proviso, and that it was never in- 
dorsed by the Democratic party of the country, 
but on the contrary, the Supreme Court has dc- 
clared it null, wrong, and unconstitutional — and 



th.it Douglas makes war m, the Democratic 

Administration, the Cabinet, Senate, House of 
Representath <■-, and all the Stat< a of 'he South, 

in order to cany forward his doctrine, that our 

rights shall not in the Territories receh 6 the pro 
tectl f our common Go^ ei ami at. 

I -how you farther, that Jul I Douglas cares 

nothing about the I democracy, and that his aim is 

simply to pull down the DemOOTaCJ — that lie 
knows he has no chance of an election, and there- 
fore has opposed all sorts oi' fusion between the 
two wings of the Democracy, that now he nuv 
run in several States and destroy that majority, 
and let in the old opponent of tlie part] running 
under the lead of Hell. In thisState what chance 
has Douglas to carry the electoral vote' What 

sane man believes tor a single moment that he 
has the least chance of carrying the State of 
Tennessee? 'What man among them will dare 

announce on the stump or in a newspaper — on his 
honor as a man — that he can carry Tennessee ' 
They know, too, in the State of Alabama, that 
by running their ticket single or by any fusion, 
that they have no chance of coming within twen- 
ty thousand votes of the invincible Democracy. 
[(Jreat applause.] He is in the same fix in North 
Carolina, in Georgia, and in Mississippi. He is 
running his ticket. What is the result ? There 
may enough (lake off from the true Democracy to 
enable Bell to slip in and carry the State, and 
thus perchance the South will be split up and 
divided so that Lincoln will carry the day against 
a divided majority. 

Why is it he runs thus wildly'' He does not 
hope to carry Tennessee. He hopes to gain no 
advantage under it, but it is the last, desperate 
throw of a vindictive and desperate state-man, 
who feels that he has been caught, and if he dies 
or sinks in the struggle, he will willingly go 
down, it he can carry the Democracy with him. 
Vengeance, ami vengeance alone, <iu<jlit to l« irrit- 
linax the motto tin every Douglas banner thati 
Jloqte to the breeze. [Much applause.] They fen-, 
that division will not avail Bell in many States, , 
ami they are proposing fusions everywhere. They 
are the keenest fellows in the world, and Doug- 
las is willing to fuse with any body in order to 
give him a position to beat down the otherwise 
triumphant masses in the Democratic States. 

I don't assert this without reason. I ask your 
attention to what several prominent men have 
said on that que.-tion. 1 invite you now to listen! 
to what John Forsyth says on this question. He, 
says: 
" Tin' only compromise we can make with them is, 

that they lay down their arm.-, confess then 
upon the stool of repentance, and vote for Stephen 
A.. Douglas. It' we d npromise, we cannot com- 
promise with the Breckinridge taction pr th 
Republican party: but there is a I oi«n party we) 
oan compromise with, and that is the Bell and Ev- 
erett party. They have the same objeet in view we 
have— to preserve this government ami not allow it 
to tie saerifioed to the passions and ambition of mis- 
guided lllell." 

Oh, how he WOOS them J How teaderlj he 

whispers them in the eai -! 

What does Judge Henderson, of the Second 
I district id' Missouri, saj I He was i 

the Democratic Convention at Charleston and at 

Baltimore, and he voted forDougla.- all the time* 
what does he 



Mr. Henderson, of Missouri, said : "You may beat 
mo and send me home, and thereby confer a favor on 
me; but you had better elect me just once and send 
me to Washington, because I am an expurgator. I 
come not before you for the purpose of deceiving, 
disrupting or breaking up the American or any other 
organization; I say stand to your colors, and if you 
won't elect Douglas then fight for Bell and Everett. 
They are good men, 1 have not forgotten the time 
when the cry rang through this district, that Bell 
was an Abolitionist, a Prea-Soiler, because of his 
vote on the Leoompton Constitution. I went through 
the district and defended Bell and Crittenden, and 
Douglas against this charge. All know it. And yet 
the people want to know if 1 belong to the north 
wing of the Democratic party." 

What did Ed. Marshall say at one of their 
squatter meetings in Philadelphia? 

"But I say that Kentucky is going to do one of 
two things" — a wise man! They surely were not 
going to do three things — "either she is going lor 
Bell and Everett, or for Stephen A. Douglas." 

Let us hear a little more from some other lead- 
ers of this Douglas party. Did you ever hear of 
one J. J. Seibels, editor of the Confederation, 
published at Montgomery, in the State of Ala- 
bama? He is a leading Douglas man in the State 
of Alabama. 

"It is with cheering hope that we announce the 
very great probability — the almost certainty— that 
all conservative men in New York, whether Demo- 
crats or Americans, will unite upon perfectly equal, 
fair, and honorable terms, upon one — the Douglas 
ticket — and that there will be but two tickets, Doug- 
las and Lincoln, in that State. Such is our informa- 
tion from various private letters, and also sufficient- 
ly shadowed forth in several leading journals." 
******* 

"And we have no hesitation in advising, that if 
the Americans who are in the minority in New 
\ ork, shall patriotically come to the support of the 
Douglas ticket, for the purpose of saving the coun- 
try, that the Douglas men should in every State 
where they are in a hopeless minority, go to the aid 
of the Americans to defeat Breckinridge." 

Think of it, you Irish adopted citizens! Mark 
it well, you Germans! Remember it you men who 
have thought that the American party were not 
for equal rights. Think of your being transfer- 
red like sheep and a"be!l" put on you! [Laughter 
and applause.] Just think of it, you who are 
straying about in the Whig camp — in the Ameri- 
can camp Think of it, when the fight is over, 
these Douglas men will whistle up these fellows 
that they have marked and branded and put a 
"bell" on that they might know them. [A by- 
stander — "Hit 'em again."] 

Just listen again! Here is something more. 
Fushion has taken place, my countrymen. Here 
is a letter from Leslie Combs. They had an 
election in Kentucky. The Whigs ran their 
man, Leslie Combs. The Douglas men ran their 
candidate, a man named Boiling. Before the 
election took place the Douglas papers had by 
their editorials called upon their followers to vote 
for any man rather than the Breckinridge candi- 
date. Why not recommend them to vote for 
their own man and elect him? When the elec- 
; tion was over it was found that they had voted 
for Combs. He "let the cat out of the bag." 
He is an honest man. He had no secrets. He 
■ had got into power by it, and he wrote a letter as 
) follows: 

' "Profoundly grateful as lam to Providence and 
j the people for making me the instrument of politi- 
cal redemption, 1 ask leave to say a single word to 
< you. The patriotic national union Democracy have 



co-operated with us most manfully, and we must 
hereafter consider them as brethren. 

"We can all stand on the platform of 1852, recog- 
nizing the Compromise of 1850." 

Oh, yes! we can all stand on that if you fellows 
will do the work and give the others the wine, 
desert, and lager beer. [Applause.] Listen to 
his advice to these Democratic brethren. [Laugh- 
ter.] 

"Hereafter go for the Union, the Constitution, and 
the enforcement of the laws." 

What does that mean? What is the Union? 
Vote for a Whig! [Laughter.] What is the 
Constitution? Put the American party in power. 
[Applause.] What is the enforcement of the 
laws? Give the Whigs all the offices. This is 
it. [Renewed laughter.] 

"There need be no question for criticism as to the 
past." 

There must not be any criticism as to the past. 
Combs did not want to criticise the past. He did 
not want the past looked into by the Irish or Ger- 
man adopted citizens, or what was left of them. 

"But perfect harmony in combatting the common 
enemy hereafter, i. e. both sectional parties. I hope 
the press on both sides will take this ground. The 
Yancey-Breckinridge disunionists have received 
their first rebuke— mild and gentle compared to the 
future. They are doomed." 

I feel that, gentlemen, pretty strongly. [Ap- 
plause.] I don't wonder Leslie Combs asks the 
Irishmen not to criticise the past too much. I do "Ot 
much wonder when we think of that bloody and 
awful August, when fire and faggot, bayonet and 
ball, poured out their blood in the streets of Louis- 
ville, amid the shrieks of their women and child- 
ren. [Immense applause.] I don't wonder after 
Know-Nothingism had shown its horrid vengeance 
against these poor foreigners there, that Combs 
should now say, don't let us criticise the past 
much. It is my province to bring it to your re- 
collection. It is my province to say to the for- 
eign population, if you forget the hour when the 
bones of your wives and children crackled in the 
flames of Know-Nothingism, you deserve to be 
forgotten of your God. [Tremendous applause-] 
Yet these Douglas leaders have sold you to that 
faction in Kentucky, and have given them 25.000 
majority for anybody but an old-fashioned Demo- 
crat, all of whose sin is that he dares stand up 
for the constitutional right of his own section and 
vote against Douglas. Are you ready for that? 
Are you, the old line Democracy, ready for that 
fusion in which you are to be transferred by the 
leaders over to the Know- Nothing, American, 
and Whig parties when November comes, and 
you own electoral ticket to be deserted — the con- 
sequence being that old Democrats with the ban- 
ner of the equal rights of the people and the 
equal rights of the States, aggression on nobody, 
will be beaten down — that old-fashioned, honest, 
equal rights Democrats shall go down, and Whig 
principles shall triumph in the person of your old 
enemy? Are you ready for that? [Several voices, 
"No."] I believe not! I believe there are hun- 
dreds and thousands of men yet in these Doug- 
las ranks who, before November next, will find 
out where floats the Democratic standard, and 
where stand the Democratic leaders, and when 
the bugle blast of the Democracy rings forth 
upon the field of battle, that these men will rush 



to that standard and carry it onward to vi 
over the Americans, Whiga and Donglaa men 
combined. [Much applause*] 
A voice—Go on, Yancey. 

Mr. Yancey— Ho patient— I require your pa- 
>, for I have not come here to make a di 
of oratory before you, but to speak calmly, delib- 
erately, and truthfully on these matters — 1 ki 
where I stand— I know the hostile criticism to 
which 1 shall be subjected— 1 know that if I can 
be caught tripping how some would rejoice; but, 
io help me God, if any man bites the dust, it 
will be some other man than Yancey. [Great ap- 
plau-e.] 

I have done with these Douglas men for awhile; 
I think 1 have given them "a Roland for the 
Oliver" that they sent to me over to Alabama. 

1 come now to the Hell men, for 1 am not one 
of those Democrats who think that a Democratic 
fight can go on and speak soft words to the Bell 
■ten, men who say it is all right, we will be with 
you in a few days. I was at a meeting a few 
days Bince — at a Douglas meeting. Iliad spoken; 
then came the Douglas elector, and the Bell 
elector was to follow'. lie patted him on the 
face aiftl called him a handsome man, and he 
said: " I have no word to say against you in this 
fight, hut 1 will cajole you." He was a Scotch- 
man; but 1 believe he had been taken to Ireland 
in his Noun- days, and nude to lick "the blarney 
stone." lie actually made them believe 1 was 
an ugly fellow,and that was about as much truth 
illy tell, [laughter and applause,] 
and then he went on and pitched into me, and 
declared he was a regular national Democrat, and 
he cajoled and Battered the Bell man all the while. 
The Bell man was a gallant fellow, and he did 
not like the position of things; he was going to 
stand up for his own side, ami he pitched into 
the I : a a little. I refer to Mr. Wood, 

of Lauderdale. 

I ask whether Southern men have properly con- 
sidered what is the effect of this canvass, and of 
the vote they are going to give for Mr. Bell? 
Suppose I was to call Mr. Bell a free-soiler, you 
would call it Democratic abuse. Yet, 1 have 
American condemnation of Mr. Bell. The 
American parry of Georgia are considered to be 
pretty sound on the goose [laughter] and protec- 
tion.' They met in Mr Hill's district, the elo- 
quent and able leader of the American party in 
Georgia, and the Lagrange Reporter has the fol- 
lowing: 

"Resolutions of the Ncwnan (Oa.) Opposition 
Convention, of the 29th of June, L859, of which Con- 
vention the editor of the Reporter was one of the 
taries: 
"' That the South has nothins to hope for from 
the Ropuhliean and lJoinoeratie partes, and a true 
devotion to the welfare of our own section requires 
us to oppose b 'ih: and this Convention will neither 
indorse, sympathize, or affiliate with the Squat- 
ter Sovereignly policy of Stephen A. Douglas, or 
the free-soil affinities of Bell, Crittenden, and Hous- 
ton, who opposed the admission of Kansas under 
the Lecompton Constitution.' " [Applause ] 

These are American comments on John Bell — 
American Whigs of Georgia. 

Now, then, what did the American Convention 
ef Georgia do in 18507 They met and declared 
that the Kansas-Nebraska bill was a true South- 
ern measure, and that every man who voted 



against that bill was no true American patriot 
John Bell was io party 

has denounci I no true American or pat- 

riot. That is not my tangu i 
Bui I h '-.■■ as to John Belli 

and I will say it I. 

\ merioan part] in Alabama, al 
1 
in favor of protection] and declared that they 

would vote for no in in that dill not avow this 
Have I been correetly informed that 
John Bell, in a public spee-h in this place, has 
declared against this docl veral voices, 

"Yes."] nave 1 been correctly informed that a 
Bell paper in this oity has declared thai tfa 
trine of protection to the rights of the -l ■ 
era in the Territories they Bcorn? 1 have bi en bo 
informed. If 1 am correctly informed, then, the 
Opposition Whig party of Alabama is supporting 
Mr. Bell on the principle of protection, and the 
Opposition party in Tennessee are supporting him 
because he is opposed to the principle of protec- 
tion, and both parties have floating at their mast- 
head " the Union, the Constitution, and the en- 
forcement of the laws." One party supports him, 
saying the Constitution protects us in our proper- 
ty in the Territories, and the other denies it. If 
John Bell should be elected, pray tell me what is 
he going to do? Who is he to repudiate? I- he 
to repudiate the Bell party of Georgia and Ala- 
bama, or is he to give protection and elicit the 
Bell party of Tennessee? One or the other he is 
bound to do. One or the other he is b »und to 
deceive. Why don't he speak out, and li 
men know where he stands? An eminent citizen, 
Mr. Wall -.of A li ham i. writes and asks hi, views. 
He answered, and said "it would D »t be consis- 
tent with the views of those who nominated me 
if I were to answer your question?." W tat are 
tin' views of those who nominated him? i d 

Everett \-> written to, and he h in Is ove his letter 
to one Leverett Salstonstall, and he writes and 
says Everett was nominated with the unde 
ing that he was to answer no letters, out they 

were to be handed to us as a kind of c 

He has a padlock on his mouth. [Lau 
There ought to be a padlock on every burner 
they parade. I saw, a day or two since, a crowd 
going t) Huntsville, and every time we I 

at a station, these young gentlemen got out and 
pulled a little bell from their picket-, and they 
would go "tinkle, tinkle, tinkle." What does 
that tell the country about the remedies for right- 
ing the wrongs of the South? What doe- that 
tell about righting the Union, that is now about 

overturning under the pie-sure of these Abolition 
streams! What information does all this give to 
the aggrieved and thinking patriot who wants to-' 

.he way to sue his country' TtnUe, 
tinkle, tinkle! You write to Everett, and von get 
his committee. Tinkle! You write to B 
the clapper of the hell goes tinkle, tinkle, iinklei 
It' this a »r( of p ii riotism and facti mism is to p s» 
vail in our happy land, you will tinkle, tinl u 

dead marches to the grave of your country. 

Bell said in 1 -;">", when he defended Gen. Tay- 
lor for his silence in reference to the Wi'mot 
Proviso — If any mau desires to hear it read, 1 
have it. 



18 



[Voices — "Read it." "We believe you; we 
don't want you to read," &c] 

I read from the Appendix to the Congressional 
Globe: 

"In the late canvass I knew not, nor sought to 
know, the views of General Taylor upon the ques- 
tion of the Wiluaot Proviso, nor whether he had 
formed any opinion or determination as to what his 
course would be, should he be called upon to give or 
withhold his sanction to a Territorial bill for Cali- 
fornia or New Mexico; but in answer to all the spec- 
ulations and conjectures upon that subject, whether 
emanating from the North or the South, I took the 
ground that neither prudence, wisdom, nor patriot- 
ism, required that any candidate for the Presi- 
dency should predetermine his course, or declare 
his purpose, in regard to a question upon the de- 
cision of which hung not only the peace of the 
country, but the safety of the Union itself . ltqok 
the ground that no man who had any j ust pretension 
to the suffrages of his countrymen for the Presiden- 
cy, would dare to take such a course; and that if 
General Taylor should declare his intention either 
to sanction or veto the Wilmot Proviso, in advance, 
I should regard it as an act of the most egregious 
folly, and affording the h ighest evidence of h i* total 
Unfitness for the high station to ichich his friends 
sought to elevate him. 

" Upon such a question I contended, as I still con- 
tend, that the highest dictate of duty, wisdom, and 
patriotism, required that a President should reserve 
to himself the privilege of deliberation and reflec- 
tion, of weighing tendencies and consequences until 
the last moment of time allowed him by the Con- 
stitution, before he comes to a conclusion so preg- 
nant of momentous results." 

Here, then, is the opinion of John Bell, that no 
candidate for the Presidency ought to let you 
know if he is an Abolitionist or a Southern man. 
Here is his opinion, that it would be egregious 
folly to answer any man on the great vexed ques- 
tion of Abolition — if he would sanction or veto 
an Abolition measure. Here is John Bell, telling 
that he voted for Taylor, and he did not know if 
he would veto any measure. He did not know 
that, and he would not ask it — and that was right . 
Here is Mr. Bell. My friend, Mr. Watts, asks 
him, "are you in favor of the protection of the 
constitutional rights of the citizen, and do you 
believe in the right to go witli our property into 
the common Territory:?" and he writes back that 
it would not be consistent with the principles of 
those who nominated him to answer, and begging 
Mr. Watts to take his past life as a sufficient 
guarantee. Mr. Watts says, "I deduce from his 
record that he is in favor of protection;" yet you 
understand him to disown it. What is his record 
worth, honest men of Tennessee? The nominat- 
ing Convention won't declare his opinions, and 
he himself that is nominated won't declare his 
opinions — but he merely says, "I am for the 
Union, the Constitution, and the enforcement of 
the laws." What is that? All creeds and sects 
differ in their interpretation of the Bible. You 
want to know what interpretation he gives to the 
Constitution on these great points, and he won't 
tell you. What does he mean by the Union? 
Does he mean to maintain the Union and the 
Government if the Constitution is overthrown? 
Does he mean to maintain the Union if our rights 
are trampled under loot by an Abolition majority? 
; Shall we stick by the Union when its spirit is 
' dead — its letter violated — when the Constitution 
' has been disrupted, and the Government our 
, lathers framed has been overturned, and when in 
lieu of it Black Republicanism is put in its place? 



Is that your meaning, Mr. Bell? He won't tell 
us. He says it will be egregious folly to tell us. 
What do you mean by the enforcement of the 
law? Do you mean as the Douglas men say? 
He says it would be folly to tell you. And here, 
in this crisis in our country's destiny, when we 
don't know what lies beyond the cloud that low- 
ers over us in the North — when we want light to 
guide and instruct us — John Bell and Edward 
Everett come before you with a padlock on their 
mouths and on their banner! 

Are these the men that the true patriot of Ten- 
nessee, the enlightened man, is going to vote 
for? 

Let us look a little further into his record. I 
will read it, inasmuch as reading seems to be so 
pleasing to the crowd. 

A Voice — "You've got them down now. They 
are all leaving you." 

Mr. Yancey — Oh, stay a little while longer. 
You abuse me three hundred and sixty-four days 
in the year! Give me one hour's chance — just 
one hour. 

I am afraid I can't find it. I have lost the 
place. I will tell you what it is. When the bill 
to abolish the slave trade in the District of Co- 
lumbia was before the same Congress, Bell made 
a speech upon it. He said that he had no doubt 
of the power and duty of Congress to abolish sla- 
very in the District of Columbia. 

Oh! here it is! I will read it from the book 
itself. It is a little more tedious to read, but I 
wish to be governed by the book. I don't wish 
one word of mine shall make a shade of differ- 
ence in the language of Mr. Bell. Here it is : 

" With regard to the constitutional power of Con- 
gress over this subject, 1 would say, that the only 
doubt I have of the existence of the power either to 
suppress the slave trade or to abolish slavery in this 
District, is inspired by the respect I have for the 
opinions of so many distinguished and eminent men, 
both in and out of Congress, who hold that Congress 
has no such power. Reading the Constitution for 
myself, I believe that Congress has all the power 
over the subject in this district which the States 
have within their respective jurisdictions. 

* * * * % * * * 

"But however great my respect may be for the 
opinions of others on the question of power, there 
are some considerations of such high account as, in 
my judgment, to make it desirable, that unless by 
common consent, iho project of abolition shall be 
wholly given up and abandoned, the remnant of sla- 
very existing in this district should be abolished at 
once. At the present moment, however, the excited 
state ofpublic sentiment in the South, growing out 
of the Territorial questions, seems to forbidsuch 
a course. For myself, if the sentiment of the South 
were less inflamed, I would prefer that course to be 
kept an open question" * 

Now, gentlemen, our fathers accepted thia 
District of Columbia as a present from the slave 
States of Virginia and Maryland. It was made 
the common ground of the Confederation to meet 
in with their representatives, to enact laws for 
all, and here Mr. Bell says, that alth >ugh this 
Government is a pro-slavery Government, made 
for the protection of slave propeity, yet he be- 
lieves Congress has the power, and ought to exer- 
cise the power, and abolish slavery — destroy the 
right of the slave holder in his property. Would 
any one submit to that? The only object, he says, 
that prevented him from voting, was the infl imed 
state of the public mind. He continues: 



19 



"Iaone aspeot of thesubjeot I mn aol sure thai 
it would not be a great conservative measure, both 
: i- reaards tin- Union and tin- intercuts of the South. 

" Willi regard to the prop isitions to Buppreas the 

rade in the District as already Btated, I have 

made up my mind that it ought to bo done on several 

Is. " 

P « * * * »*•* * 

"Still, suoh :i proceeding us this, in these dis- 
tracted times, might be misunderstood, and 1 would 
not think it expedient to pass this bill in any shape 
at this time, but for the connection in which ii i- 
found with other measures, particularly with the 
Fugitive Slave bill. It was this connection, and 
in too hope that all the questions relating to this 
subject, which have so long distraoted the public 
miud. might be harmoniously adjusted, that [gave 
my assent to the prinoiple of this bill as reported 
bom the eommittee." 

If it would not produce disunion — if you would 
not break up the Union, lie says that Congress has 
tin- power, and it would he a great conservative 
measure to destroy the institution in the District 
Of Columbia. Now if Congress has the power 
and should exercise it in one case, what is to pre- 
vent it from being used as a precedent in another 
case? Are not the rights of your brother slave- 
holder in the District of Columbia as clear and 
as saned as the rights of the citizen of Tennes- 
see? In my opinion the Government has no more 
power over the rights of slaveholders in the Dis- 
rrict of Columbia than in the State of Tennessee. 
Your right of property is guaranteed to you by 
the Constitution of the United States, which pro- 
hibits any encroachment up m it. But here is a 
mm — a Southern mm — that says that Coiuress 
can destroy the slaveholder's right to hold his 
proper y in Territory where it has jurisdiction. 

N ,t only that, he tells you that he did not care 
whether Gen. Taylor was foi or against the Wil- 
ni 'i Proviso. I am willing to abolish slavery in 
the D strict of Columbia, says he. And now, in 
this trying hour, when we are trying every verge 
of the Constitution to shelter us — when we want 
no precedent of Abolitionism when we want to 
keep its foot from grazing on Southern soil — here 
are Son hem men doing their best to elect a man 
who 11 the District of Columbia is a free-soiler, 
and who, in Georgia, has been proclaimed an 
Ab ilitionist. 

I don't believe John Bell would be for the abo- 
lit oa of slavery in Tennessee; but he tells me he 
believes the abolition of slavery in the District of 
Coluinoia would be a conservative and proper 
nie isure. 

Gentlemen of the Whig party, refresh your 
memories — refer back to the short, time since, 
when your hearts were bitter against the Jackson 
Democracy of Tennessee, because they supported 
a in id who had this sentiment: " From the light 
now belore me I am not prepared to say," &<•. 
Martin Van Buren you damued forever, because 
he doubted on the question — John Hell you hug 
to sour bosoms, because he has no doubt. 

1 beg now to read you an extract from a paper 
— from the Pittsburgh Gazette. 1 don't know how 
true it is, but I think the Democrats and Bell men 
of Tennessee ought to demand an explanation of 
it. It shows that the Bell men of Indiana arc 
not ipiite 90 pure as they are here. The Pitts- 
burgh Gazdte of the yih of August, says a Terra 
Haute correspondent of the Newark Advertiser, 



rivea the following Important information i 

ing the COntl -t in Indiana: 

"In regard to the Bell and Everett movement Ifl 
the State, nothing positive can yet be known as to 
thoir running an electoral ticket in Indiana, lion. 
Richard W. Thompson, the acknowledged leader ox 
the party, ha ■ expressed hi deti rminatfon to luppoig 
both the Republican State and eleotoral tioket, ana 
it is understood that be will discourage th< 
■ation of the pan., in opposition to the sup 
Linooln and Bamb.n. The Hon. b. Bthenuge, of 

ee, on his return from rVasbingt 

guest oi Col. Thompson for a few days, and when in 
the city was serenaded by bis political friends, when 
be made a speeoh a nd exhorted them to oa 
all ideas of supporting a Boll ticket In Indiana, and 
give their united support to Line., in. Be advised 
them that nil the effort* of the united Opposition 
should be directed to the overthrow of the Demo* 
orotic pariy, which could only be done by defeating 
their candidates in as many States as possible. Ho 
said if he lived in Indiana ne would vote for Lincoln, 
but as he lived in a State where hi j own tioket had 
a chance, he would vote for Bell. This advice froni 
a man of the position held by Mr. Btheridge in his 
party has great weight with the mulubcrs of that 
part} in Indiana." 

A Tennessecan in a Freesoil State advising his 
friends and political associates to vote for the 
Black Republican candidate because they cannot 
elect the Bell ticket, and saving if he lived there 
he would vote for Lincoln! I hope this will be 
explained. I hope for the honor of the South 
that no Southern man who occupies so distin- 
guished a position as Mr. Ethe idge will be found 
to have uttered these words of treason to his own 
section. A Southern man vote for Lincoln in 
preference to voting for Breckinridge! A South- 
ern man voting for Lincoln in preference to 
1) mglas, which I cons'der as being but a slight 
difference! But there is a difference, and that 
difference my country has the right to the bene- 
fit of; but a man's heart must be embittered in 
deed, against his fellow- Democrats of the South, 
if he is willing to see the Black Republican party 
put in power — risking every thing with that party 
rather tha.i see the Democrats carrying on the 
Government. The Democracy has nowhere done 
any very great wrong to your rights. I admit 
that the Democracy has not always stood as man- 
fully and squarely up to the maintenance of yon 
constitutional rights as might have b< en, but nc 
other party lias ever done more, or come so neat 
to it. Tlie South demands a party to injure nc 
other party, but she wants her own rights to b< 
protected. 

I have read enough to you to show that then 
is much need for an avowal of the opinion 01 
Mr. Bell. I have read to you to show that In 
ought to avow himself But Hell tells you he ii 
['••y the Union! Union is the cry. Disunion. 
Breckinridge is supported by Yancey, the Bel 
men tell you, and the Douglas men tell you tin 
same. No matter what may be the spots on on; 
candidate, there is nothing compared to that gma 
spot, dark enough to eclipse every thing in Hreck 
inridge — the body of this other man, Yancey 
stands before him. [Laughter and applause. 
I can't take up a Bell paper in which mv nam. 
docs not appear half a dozen times in each cil 
umn. It is the same of the Douglas journal.' 
They send their papers to me from Minnesota; 
from Florida — from Maine to Texas. I gel thee 
papers — and if anything is said very bad, I ar 
certain to get it. All over the country, it is llti 



20 



man Yancey. It is the Yancey-Breckinridge 
part) 1 , not even the Breckinridge-Yancey party; 
1 and the Louisville Journal prints the Democratic 
ticket, having in great big letters, "WILLIAM 
' L. YANCEY," and then in small letters, "and 
, his friend, John C. Breckinridge." [Laughter.] 
Well, now, then, as during this whole canvass, 
I a great deal of paper has been worn out, a great 
i deal of ink expended, and a great deal of brain- 
| work has been put together to the end of abus- 
: ing this man Yancey, and as I never expect to 
appear before you, citizens of Memphis, again, 
i will you allow me half an hour in explaining my 
own position, and then let the Bell and Douglas 
papers loose as far as they will go. I hope these 
papers will bear in mind that when my back is 
• turned that I have not had fair dealings, at the 
best. They get at me behind my back — excuse 
me. I lead this morning some very handsome 
and generous pieces in relation to my arrival in 
Memphis. That was- kind, manly, and well- 
meant. I have no doubt these gentlemen are 
such in all their relations, except when they take 
up a pen to write about "this man Yancey," 
when they seem to become insane. They know 
not what they do, or else they would not publish 
a hundredth part of what they do. 

Now, I took up a paper this day which pub- 
lished two short columns about Yancey and his 
antecedents. I have that paper, and I have 
marked it round with red lines, and in those two 
■ 6hort columns are nineteen manufactured lies. 
The editor starts out with denying me the privi- 
lege of being born in the South, and says I was 
born at a place called Fungus, in New Ymk. 
There are nineteen of just such manufactured 
lies. That is a specimen of a great many things 
that are said of me. I have no doubt many of 
them do not know what they do. They pick 
these things up from those Alabama fellows, and 
they take them for truth. But they will allow 
me, in a spirit of fairness and manliness — as that 
grand old Democratic maxim says "fiir play is a 
jewel'' — LJiave no doubt, they will allow me to 
tell you exactly where I stand I trust they will 
give me the privilege that is given to the poorest 
villain that ever stood in the criminal's dock, and 
that is the right to be heard for myself. All I ask 
are the ordinary rules by which you try your 
criminals — prove the thing. If I put a denial on 
record, let that be to try me before the country. 
They say I am a disunionist. They say that I 
disrupted the Democratic party, or that I desire 
to do it in order to break up the Union. They 
not only tell you of my acts, but they dive within 
my bosom — a province, I thought, which only be- 
longed to the Deity — and they divine my motives 
and my secret thoughts. Well, I don't believe 
there is a supporter of Bell or Douglas that has 
much divinity about, him. I think men have a 
ri^ht to inter motives from acts. I give them 
the benelit of that, and let them make the most 
of it. It is said that I wrote a letter to James S. 
Slaughter, and that that letter is a disunion let- 
ter. I deny it. There is not a word in that letter 
tl.at I take back to-night. There is not a senti- 
ment in it I disavow. I utterly amazed a Doug- 
las editor when I referred to it the other day. 
I'e lid supposed it would set me back to have 
this letter brought to my attention, when I made 



a speech in his vicinity; and he wrote saying: 
"we would like Mr. Yancey to give an explana- 
tion of the Slaughter letter." I did not see it 
until after I had spoken; but it so happened I did 
speak of it, as also of the League, which was 
another object of his inquiries. He nearly burst- 
ed his eyes. He thought I had acknowledged I 
was a traitor. / 

But, gentlemen, to the letter. Consider what 
it is. In the first place, there are few men that 
would like all they say in privacy to be published 
to the world; not that they have told a lie in 
what they have said in private, but because it is a 
thing the public had nothing to do with, and 
probably they may use language carelessly, which 
unexplained, might mislead. Sometimes what a 
nun says needs no explanation to any but the one 
to whom it is written. Here w T as a little short 
letter — a little private letter written to a man who 
desired me to help him to break up the Demo- 
ciatic party. He called the party the Augean 
stables, and he wanted me to join him and build 
up a Southern party to clean out the Augean sta- 
bles. Poor fellow, he is dead now! He killed 
himself last week — poisoned himself while labor- 
ing under depression of spirits He published 
that letter wrongfully. He published it not de- 
nouncing me for disunionism, like some of you 
feel — but he did not like it because I would not 
he'p him break up the Democratic party. I wrote 
him, saying I would not join him, and quit the 
Democracy. That is the only thing I am charg- 
ed with. I have been in the Democratic party 
allmy life Sometimes it has been wrong; but I 
have never given a vote against it. Mark you, I 
have not always voted with it or for it — I have 
sometimes stood by — for I can't vote against my 
conscience. 1 am answerable to God tor tint. I 
wrote to him that I would not do it; and I said, 
you cannot clean out the Augean stables in that 
way; and then knowing that lie had quit the De- 
mocracy, I suggested to him this, or in the nature 
of this— - J, I believe the next aggression will be 
committed on the South, and I do not believe any 
party can save the South." They say I am for 
a sectional party — why I refused to aid in getting 
up one. They say I am against the Democra- 
cy — I refused to leave it. Then in my letter I 
said — if we could do as our fathers did, organize 
committees of safety all over the cotton States, 
we shall fire the Southern heart — instruct the 
Southern mind — give courage to each other, and 
at the proper moment, by one organized, concert- 
ed action, we can precipitate the cotton States 
into a revolution. I believed the North will be 
so encouraged — there are so many submissionist3, 
and so many Union shriekers in our midst, that 
they are killing off our Southern patriotism — and 
therefore I wrote to this man what I say to you, 
take this Sou hern league, which had recently 
been advocated in the Alabama Advertiser. If 
you won't join the Democratic parry, instead of 
making it your business to pull down the party — 
go to work and try to elevate the public mind of 
the people in favor of Southern rights. Then 
you can precipitate the cotton States into a revo- 
lution at the proper moment; for I have no faith 
that any N rthern State will stand up to the 
rights of the South. 

Well, that letter is nothing but the Georgia 



21 



platform — the Georgia union platform made by 
it in 1851, when the Btate wai 
restless about Che abolition of the Blave trade 
between the States and the District of Columbia. 
The people of Georgia met in Convention and 
passed an ordinance which is now a part of the 
Constitution of Georgia. It is as colli 

part: 

1. That wo hold the American Union secondary 
in importance only to the rights and principles ii 
was destined to perpetuate; that past associations, 
I fruition and future prospects will bind us to 
it si i long as it oontinuesto be the safeguard of those 
rights and principles. 

^'. That ir the i birteen original parties to the con- 
tract , bordering the Atlantic in a narrow belt, whilst 
the ir separate interests were in embryo; their pecu- 
liar tenaei ■ ely developed; their revolution- 
ary traits and triumphs still green in memory; found 
union impossible without compromise, the thirty- 
pne of this day will yield somewhat in the conflict of 
opinion and policy to presen e that Union w bich has 
extended the sway of Republican Government over 
a vast wilderness to another ocean, and proportion- 
i i heir eft ilization ami national great- 

Ui'-'. 

r '.i. That in this spirit we have maturely considered 
the action of Congress, embracing a series of meas- 
im 9 for the admission of California into the Onion; 
the organization of Territorial Governments for 
1 i thandNcw Mexico; the establishment of a bound- 
ary between the latter and the State of Texas; the 
suppression of the slave trade in the District of 
Col imbia, and the extradition of fugitive slaves, 
and connected with them, the rejection of the pro- 
position? to es ilude slavery from the Mexican Terri- 
tories, and to abolish it in the District of Columbia. 
and while we do not wholly approve, will abide by 
it as a permanent adjustment of this sectional con- 
troversy. 

4. That Georgia in our judgmeut, will and ought 
to resist, even (is a last resor ) to a, disruption of 
every tie which binds her to the Union, any action 
of Congr --s up o) the subject of slavery in the Dis- 
■ t Columbia, or in placessuhject to the juris- 
diction of Congress, incompatible with the safety, 
domestic tranquility, the rights and honor of the 
slaveh' 1 Jiug States, or in any act suppressing the 
Blave trad the slaveholding States, or in 

any refusal to admit as a State any territory here- 
after applying because of the existence of slavery 
therein, or in anj act prohibiting the introduction of 
slaves int iries of Utah and N sw .Mexico, 

or in any act repealing or materially modifying the 
laws, now in force for the recovery of fugitive slaves. 

And it was made a part of the Constitution of 
Georgia, which no law can repeil, that when the 
next agression c imea on the South, the Govern 
or of Ge irgia is bound at once to call the peo- 
ple together to take measures to po out of the 
Union. That was the Union platform in 1851, 
adopted by the Union party in the State of Ten- 
nessee, and adopted throughout the South gener- 
ally. This Slaughter letter therefore was this — 

go to work m ii 1 prepare, that when the time c eg 

the Southern people will be ready to enforce the 
Union, not the disunion platform — resistance to 
the next aggression upon your constitutional 
rights. 

Is there any man here who claims to be a 
Southern m in, who is willing to stand up before 
a Ten I?-- -e audience and say, "I am not will- 
ing to s.v that the South shall not resist any 
aggression upon her constitutional rights?" Is 
there any s»uch man here, be he Douglas or Bell 
man? [C:-ies of No.] If there is, I should like 
to look at him, and to know his name — audi 
should like his neighbors and the people gener- 
ally to know him. I want to see the m:in that is 



ready to knuckle and bow and submit to the 
Northern people under a higher law. That man 
bt to condemn me for writing the Slaugh- 
ter biter. No other man has 8 right tO 

No Union man of 1851 has. No Bell man of 
I860 has. 

I want to read to (he B( 1! m< mse I 

am inclined to think that what I shall read will 

be authority even for them, and I hope they will 
tinkle their bell over it until the next time they 

speak of me as a disunion! -t. Here is what .Mr. 
Bell says. I read you from the official record: 

"Sir, no man who loves his country, no man who 
has any just pride in the reflection that I 

n citizen, hut must d< iira that these dimen- 
sions should cease, for, sir, it i-' not a mere question 
whether we shall preserve the Union; for that may 
he, and yet prove no great boon either to ourselves 
or to posterity." 

The Union no great boon. Doesn't that sound 
like Yancey > 

"The question is not whether thi so States shall 
continue tube united according to the letter of the 
covenant by which tiny are hound together; it. is 
whether they shall continue to be united in heart — 
whether they shall continue to be practically and 
efficiently carrying out the great end of the associa- 
tion. * * This is the question, and when you 
present that issueto me, lsaj al once, give me sep- 
aration, give me disunion, give me any thing in pref- 
erence to a Union sustained only by p 
stitutional and legal ties — without confidence. If 
our future career is to be one of eternal discoid and 
of angry crimination and recrimination, give me 
rather separation with all its consequences. 

Well, now, there is no aggression here, mind 
you, simply the constant scene of quarreling, 
threatening, and discord. When you present 
that issue to him, he says at once, "give me sep- 
aration — give me disunion,'" says John Bell, 
"Give me anything in prefer* nee to a Union sus- 
tained only by [tower, by const tutional and legal 
ties without confidence. Ah! lie says he is 
against, the Union sustained by constitutional and 
legal ties, if you don't have confidence between 
each other. If your sentiments don't agree — 
although the ties are constitutional and legal — 
he says, give me disunion rather. 

That is John Bell. John Bell then lias t« 
you what? Why, gentlemen, did I go as far 

that when I said in my Slaughter letter, "we will 
precipitate the cotton States into a revolution the 
next aggression — at the proper moment on the 
next aggression?" Did I go as far as John Bell, 
who said he did not want to wait for the next 
aggression, but says if this constant warfare ia to 
be continued, give mesepara ion. H«>w dare any 
Bell man to call me a disunionist I How dare he 
stand up and repeat that as to me and not de- 
nounce Hell as a disunionist ? Sir, i,' you do that, 
I Bay to your face you are apolitical hyp crite, 
unworthy of the conf iple. A 

disunionist, when all the charge that i- mole 
against me is, that i am ready to s'rike a blow 
for our constitutional rights, against one. institu- 
tional aggression? And yet you due support 
Hell who says, give me disunion rath ir than the 
Union with a want of confidence. How em the 
people have confidence in you, gentlemen — how 

can the Union loving ] pie oi lie- C n trj — 

those who only know the Union thtoiigh the Con- 
stitution when having such a Union — when you, 
having promulgated that I am a traitor, ao 



22 



Bell stands a head and shoulders above me in the 
ranks, you support John Bell? 

The Douglas men, what do they do ? Ah ! they 
say he is a disunionist — Yancey is an agitator — 
he disrupted the Democratic party — he got up 
the Alabama platform to divide the Democratic 
p ar ty — and yet it so happens that history tells 
you that the Alabama platform simply asked for 
our constitutional rights, and did not say that we 
would go out of the Union, but out of the Dem- 
ocratic party. We went out, did we not? Eight 
of the Democratic States went out, and I should 
call that a pretty wide breach — so wide, indeed, 
that no Douglas "man can ever get to Heaven, if 
it is between him and hell. [Laughter.] And yet 
it so happens when I went back to the Democra- 
cy of Alabama, it fell to my fortune to lead off 
in the cause of conciliation and moderation, and 
in endeavoring to heal the breach that had occur- 
red at Charleston, to give the Democracy time to 
repent. To reconsider, I took occasion to lead 
off in asking that Convention to send us to Bal- 
timore. Had it been my object to break up the 
Union by that disruption, I had already broken 
up the party, and had the Union at my feet, and 
yet you find me in the Convention at Montgom- 
ery saying, "let us go back with the olive branch 
although they have insulted us — although they 
have done usa wrong — let us go back and unite 
the gallant Democracy once more in gallant and 
glorious support of the Constitution and the 
rights of the South." 

But they say "the league!" Oh, that is a se- 
cret thing ! Bring it out; maybe it has a cloven 
foot, and a tail hidden under its c institution. 
They tell us it is a secret thing. They tell us 
that I am forming it through the country, and if 
yon don't look out I will have a league formed 
in the city of Memphis. Some man writes to the 
Stntrs, a Douglas paper published at Washing- 
ton, that I am forming a league with ten oaths, 
and all that. Now all of that is a manufactured 
lie. 
gj v In 1858 I did form a league in Montgomery. 
yjU existed three months. The people frowned it 
tfial'wn, and the Democracy frowned it down — I 
thought it a good rhing, but the citizens did not. 
I wish to G >d every man in lhe South was a 
mem >er of a Southern league. I wish every 
man at the North was. If it were so, the objects 
of the league would be promoted, and the con- 
stitutional rights of the South would be pro- 
tec ed. 

But they tell us that is not the object. I have 
it stated here in the Mem; his weekly Appeal. 
Now 1 will sa\ in the first place, the league never 
was a secrel association. It was extinguished 
within three months after it was initiated — the 
members never met without public notice being 
given in tie papers or by hand-bills — its meet- 
ings were held with open doors, and its proceed- 
in:- were always published on the following day 
in the newspapers. There was no test oath about 
1 it. IJii lice is an article that I am told has 
i been di i lently prepared. It is taken from the 
1 Na-ii\i e Patriot. Is that a Douglas or a Bell 
p '•,-, Bell! Bell!] He says of tiie 

1 le;. . i intense applause.] 



" The members of this organization shall be known 
as the 'Leaguers of the South,' and our motto shall 
be, a Southern republic is our only safety." 

* * * * * * * * 

And then it goes on, and has twelve articles, 
which it is unnecessary to read. Now, what do 
you say, when I pronounce that this instrument 
here — so carefully got up as a campaign paper to 
be used among the people, and put forth under 
the auspices of the Nashville Patriot, an repub- 
lished in the Memphis Appeal as an authentic 
document — what do you say when I pronounce it 
abase, infamous, political forgery! [Great ap- 
plause.] I don't say these gentlemen forged it. 
I know nothing of them. I don't know where 
they got it. They may possibly have got it from 
some miserable lying sheet in Alabama, and tak- 
ing it for granted to be true, republished it. I 
state this to you. The Constitution of the Uni- 
ted Leagues of the South, the only one adopted 
that I ever heard of, was published the next morn- 
ing after it was adopted in public meeting. A 
large number were struck off and circulated; and 
afterwards seeing a document put forth purport- 
ing to be the Constitution, I wrote a letter cor- 
recting the misapprehension. I have given the 
Constitution, at length, everywhere I have spo- 
ken I have, at each place, met the same docu- 
ment, and have reiterated the same truth; and 
yet the Douglas orators in my State still carry it 
about and promulgate it. Are they so utterly 
destitute of merit that they cannot do a fair and 
manly piece of justice and courtesy? Have I not 
a right t<> demand of these^gentlemen the ordina- 
ry rules of fair play? That they should at least 
put me on trial before their readers, and way Mr. 
Yancey has denied it? Perchance it has been, 
done. " I have endeavored to find out that it has, 
but I cannot so learn. But, on the contrary, I find 
myself attacked again and again. 

I love the favorable verdict of my kind as much 
as any other man. 1 have endeavored to live a 
life of self-denial, of justice — to pursue the ways 
of truthfulness towards my fellow-men, and in 
all my relations 1 have endeavored, with all the 
infirmities of human nature upon me, to do justice 
to all. Truth, justice, and the Constitution has 
been my motto, in private as well as in public 
life. Ii" any of these gentlemen will point to the 
d<y or the hour when I have uttered a word or 
sentence, or did an act that was untrue to any 
constitutional right of any section, I will come 
down from this platform and never utter another 
word to the people. [Applause.] 

What is the leigue? Here it is. Listen to 
what I recommend to every slaveholder. See, , 
each of you, ii there is a word or a line that you 
disapprove. When I get through I shall chal- 
lenge any one to rise in his place and say that it 
is treasonable: 

" CONSTITUTION OP THE MONTGOMERY LEAGUE OV 
UNITED SOUTHERNERS. 

'•Believing that the South is in need of some effi- 
cient and organized mode of concentrating publifl 
opinion upon public men and measures, and of infiu- 
euoing ami guiding political parties, with a view to 
the advancement aud protectkn of her constitution- 
al rights, and that the want of this has enabled all 
politteal parties to sacrifice those rights to their own 

"'And believing further that it is the duty of His 
South to use all proper means to maintain her rigl ta 
within the Umou, with a view to being justified oe- 



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